Cleanup with style planned in Bedford Twp.

Volunteers to wear reflective yellow shirts

Phil Wesley, left, and Patti Wenski hold one of the shirts for volunteers such as Ms. Wenski and Ralph Wenski, center. They were at Our Lady of Mount Carmel last week.

TEMPERANCE -- Volunteers who pick up trash along Bedford Township's roads will be able to do so in a little more style.

The Temperance Action Committee, working with a local businessman, has come up with a bright yellow T-shirt with reflective material that the Monroe County Road Commission has approved for use in the county's Adopt-A-Road program.

The shirt is the brainchild of Gail Keane, the organizer behind the township's litter-control effort, and is made by Gene Stock, owner of Stock Sport Inc. Mr. Stock does custom embroidery and screen printing out of his Temperance home on Crabb Road. He also came up with the T-shirts' slogan: "A partnership for litter-free Monroe County roads."

The shirts are $8 for short-sleeved versions or $12 for long-sleeve versions; hooded sweatshirts are $20. They can be ordered at bedfordyes.com/TemperanceActionCommittee.htm or stocksportsinc.com.

Ms. Keane said the T-shirts are a big improvement over the vests the road commission provides for Monroe County's Adopt-A-Road volunteers.

The Temperance Action Committee is a group whose main mission is to revitalize downtown Temperance. Ms. Keane said she realized six or seven years ago that improving Temperance should include picking up trash. "My goal was to do what we could do to clean things up, and one of these was road cleanup," she said.

The county had an Adopt-A-Road program, but she discovered that only one group in Bedford Township, the Knights of Columbus at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Community, was active. It worked along Lewis Avenue from Dean to Smith roads.

Today, she said, 28 groups are picking up trash along primary roads in Bedford and two work secondary roads. "We're picking up 51 miles of road," Ms. Keane said. "In April, there were 505 bags of trash picked up."

Donna Richileau, who coordinates the county Adopt-A-Road program for the road commission, said Bedford has more volunteer groups than any community in the county.

She said she plans to send a flyer to officials throughout Monroe County telling of the availability of the safety T-shirts. "This is another option for our volunteers," she said.

-- Carl Ryan