Keep the burgers flowing and the CPR guys nearby

There was a lot of enthusiasm surrounding this year’s annual Cleanup Day in Lebanon, but none as effusive as the response to a notion stated in a letter to the editor in The Lebanon Voice that “(a certain someone) deserves credit for Lebanon’s Cleanup Day.”

I had people flagging me down on the street, posting on the online newspaper site and its Facebook page, calling me on the phone and they all had one thing to say: We’ve been having a cleanup day here long before the Rescue put it on, dating well back into the 1980s.

Well, we happily stand corrected. And if Historical Society President Nancy Wyman can figure out who started it, we’ll be the first to give him or her credit.

Meanwhile, at the barbecue put on to feed the hungry volunteers after the cleanup it was like a mini-festival with the Rescue Department putting on CPR classes, blood pressure checks and doing outreach on its status as a Heart Healthy department.

Of course, while Paramedic Kevin Romano and Capt. Tim Wagner worked the blood pressure station and Jessica Kelley taught CPR, residents were pounding hot dogs, cheeseburgers, potato chips and soda. OK. Next time we’re serving celery and carrot sticks and tofu. Think that’ll draw a crowd?

By the way, my goal is to have a deejay at next year’s celebration, and he’ll only play the music I like.

One final note. This year’s Cleanup Day cost the town nothing. It didn’t cost any Rescue Corporation anything, either. It was a pure volunteer effort, pulled off with the fantastic and generous help of area businesses and the cleanup volunteers, themselves.

So why can’t we take a page out of this as we plan other town initiatives that, in the end, not only benefit our town, but also the lucky folks who live here?