Riverfront Park is a roughly 7-acre walking path along the Schuylkill River.
Gabriela Martinez / WITF
RIVERZILLA Community Day invites Reading residents to clean up the Schuylkill River
Volunteers will help remove litter from the riverbanks during the annual community event Saturday.
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Katie Knol/WITF
Gabriela Martinez / WITF
Riverfront Park is a roughly 7-acre walking path along the Schuylkill River.
Reading residents will have the chance to help clean up the Schuylkill River and enjoy outdoor activities during the city’s fifth annual RIVERZILLA Community Day on Saturday.
The event, a collaboration between the City of Reading Public Works Department and Schuylkill River Greenways, is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Volunteers will spend the first two hours cleaning trash and litter on the riverbanks.
“It started as a lot of visitors coming down to our riverfront and leaving a mess behind, and so it was a way of being able to kind of take the space back for our residents and making sure that people who are visiting our spaces are just cleaning up after themselves,” said organizer Bethany Ayers-Fisher.
The river has become cleaner since they began the organized cleanup, she said. People have improved at picking up after their picnics, but there are still often glass bottles and metal bottle caps, which aren’t allowed at the park.
RIVERZILLA is also a chance to reintroduce locals to the waterway that, decades ago, wasn’t safe for recreation. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., visitors can join kayaking demonstrations and rent trail bikes.
“We want people to have a relationship with the river and make those memories,” Ayers-Fisher said. “It’s a great space for just hanging out with your friends and your family, but we just wanted to make sure that people are stewarding the space well so everybody can enjoy it.”
Weather is expected to be pleasant on Saturday, according to the ABC27 forecast. It will be mostly cloudy with a high of 88 degrees, and there is a 0% chance of precipitation.
Anyone interested in joining the morning clean-up should bring old sturdy shoes they’re OK with getting muddy.
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