On May 5 in downtown Norwich, the volunteers for business window washing team consisted of; BOCES State Social Worker Darci Herrick, BOCES Senior students: Seth Milk, Kampron Marshall, and Waylon Raymond, along with Retail Banking Administrator for NBT and BID Board member Victoria Trask. (Photo by Kelli Miller)

NORWICH — DCMO BOCES employees and students, The Business Improvement District (BID) members and citizens, volunteered on May 5 from 9 a.m to 12 p.m. in Norwich local parks and downtown areas to pick up trash, clean gutters, pull weeds and wash business windows.

DCMO BOCES Career Counselor Megan Sprizener, Social Worker Darci Herrick, and Instructor Roger Ree, along with BOCES graduating senior students wanted to do something in the community to give back and decided to clean up the downtown area and local parks.

“We picked up water bottles, cups, cigarette butts, and pulled weeds; Just freshening it up. The BID removed all collected trash,” Sprizener said.

“The students are all so wonderful and really did great work,” she added.

Boces State Social Worker Darci Herrick, Boces senior students: Seth Milk, Kampron Marshall, and Waylon Raymond, along with NBT Retail Banking Administrator and Business Improvement District (BID) Board member Victoria Trask washed business windows from Cortland Street to Eaton Street.

“I think its always important that our businesses are looking presentable and I think the community appreciates that people are giving back. It's always good for our students to be out and to be seen helping and what a good job they're doing,” Trask said.

Raymond said, “ This makes me feel great, it puts a smile on my face and on others.”

Instructor Ree and Boce students Amanda Miller and Stephen Field found a needle while cleaning up. They put a garbage bag next to it and Ree contacted the appropriate person to pick it up. It was picked up and disposed of properly.

“We went all around the city court building, and picked up trash, pulled weeds, and then went to the railroad track to pick up more trash there. There's about three or four groups from Boces out here and citizens volunteered too,” Ree said.

After they finished cleaning their designated areas, Res and the students Amanda Miller and Steven Field went back to the park to see what else was going on. They enjoyed a donut before the next clean up at the police station.

BID board member and Minty's owner Mindy Chawgo kept things moving along. She too, along with other student volunteers, picked up trash, pulled weeds, shoveled and raked dirt areas while providing clean up supplies when needed.

BID Director Tracy Chawgo said, “Some people from City Hall and other BID members along with BOCES were out picking up garbage, cleaning out the curbs, cleaning up in the parks, picking up trash in the parking lots behind Red Roof and Ninas, and just doing a little area beautification. We're getting things off to a good start before summer gets here.”

“Contrary to what is heard about needles being everywhere, we only found two needles and we were all over the business district,” said Chawgo.

“It's good to have people involved and a few businesses took the time to thank us, which it's nice to be appreciated,” he added.

“If we can get more people to focus on the positive and let go of the negative, everyone has negative in their lives; but if we can all focus more on the positive stuff, I think Norwich would be a better place, Chenango County would be better and maybe we can get this world to start turning around a little,” Chawgo said.