Tidy Kererūs clean up the streets of Pirongia with more clean up days to come

Attendees of the litter pick in Pirongia, post collection. Photo/Pirongia Community Association.

The clean-up day in Pirongia, part of the Keep New Zealand Beautiful, was held last Saturday, from 9.30am to 11am at the Pirongia Community Centre on Crozier St.

Geoff Edwards was the one who put the idea out there when he saw the event advertised on Keep New Zealand beautiful. He wanted help with the organising and reached out to the community association for help.

That is when The Kererū Club heard about it and asked if they could organise it. The Kererū Club is a youth club that started from homeschool learning.

They were sponsored by Pirongia Lions, who gave The Kererū Club a gift card to Pak'nSave Te Awamutu to fund the sausage sizzle, and also let them borrow their gazebo. The Pirongia Community Association was another sponsor, letting them use the community centre for a base for free.

The Waipā District council provided the group with rubbish bags and Ruth's ReCreations donated all of the prizes that were handmade.

The event was in the Pirongia village and managed to complete a litter pick up on all central Pirongia, with only the outline not done, which is planned to be completed at a later date.

Thirty people came to the event, ranging from a 7-week-old baby to retirees. There were also three members from The Kererūs who came and represented the club. These were Ruby Webb, Amy Webb, and Addison Brears.

Ruby said, "The shopping process was very fun. We paid with the gift card that the Lions gave us. We bought chocolate, sausages, onions, and sauce. We had to buy the bread at FreshChoice Te Awamutu. I made brownies and we donated lollipops. The food was all free to anyone who walked around and picked up litter."

Some of their funny moments was a family walking past their base who came up to Mike Brears and asked him how much the sausages were. Being told they get a free sausage for walking around the block and picking up litter, they happily did that.

Another man on his way to work offered to pay $8 for two. That money was donated to The Kererū Club.

In the end, Kererū Club members sorted out all of the rubbish into piles. Some of the piles were aluminium cans, recycling, landfill, glass bottles, interesting things and masks. There were 57 aluminium cans, 30 glass bottles, and 10 masks.

They got five full yellow rubbish bags full of litter for landfill, around 38 kilograms worth of landfill rubbish. They recycled what they could.

The winner of the heaviest bag and the most rubbish was Yorrick Webb which was collected mostly off of Pirongia Rd and the cemetery. Yorrick got a total of just over 8kg.

Cherie and Nevel Kemp came in second with a total of 6.6kg, if you count the block of concrete they put in their bag.

The best attitude award was a tie between all the kids that participated in the event.

And the most interesting item prize went to Sian and Julie Beare, with a decapitated dinosaur toy.

Overall The Kererū Club says it was a success.