CALEB NICKERSON
CALUMET ISLAND
May 5, 2018
On Saturday, dozens of volunteers spent the morning scouring the roadsides of Calumet Island in search of trash.
The event was the third annual Green for my Island event, which was started as a community clean-up initiative for Earth Day.
“It was 2016 when the municipality formally organized the project,” explained organizer Tyler LaSalle. “The first year it was organized by Pierre Fréchette and last year I took over. We all want to pitch in and clean our ditches.”

As Calumet Island is a large municipality geographically, the volunteers focused their attention on the ditches, filling many truck beds with piles of garbage and recycling.
“In the summer, a lot of tourists come to Calumet Island and we want to give them the best first impression we can, so that’s why we decided to come together to pick up trash on the side of the road,” explained LaSalle. “It’s outrageous the amount of garbage we find.”
After spending the morning gathering trash in the sun, the volunteers congregated at the local R.A. Hall for refreshments and shade. There was even a table of donated items and services to be raffled off.
“We started organizing a couple weeks back. We also had some people go out and secure donations. We wanted to have some food for everybody and a little thank you,” explained volunteer Lyne Tremblay “A lot of the communities … were all very generous with their donations.”