Deidra Bigham is a volunteer’s volunteer for Green Team

Published on August 29, 2024

She intentionally scheduled her Adopt-a-Spot cleanup on Drake Avenue for Sept. 7 so she could participate in Green Team’s cleanup at Hillendale Park as part of National Cleanup Day.

“My whole life is always trying to find interesting and fun ways to give back to my community,” Bigham said. “That’s just who I’ve always been.”

Bigham has adopted a section of Drake Avenue from Gate 8 on the east side of Redstone Arsenal to Triana Boulevard. Her group includes about five people faithful to join her on cleanup events every six weeks, but Bigham said she wished there were more hands to help.

For Bigham, the mission is always to do more. That’s how she came to adopt a portion of Drake Avenue. She had been participating in monthly community Green Team cleanups for at least two years until a cleanup focused on a neighborhood off Drake Avenue.

“And I was like, ‘Hey, do you mind if I just go on Drake and clean up?’” Bigham said. “And they’re like, ‘You go wherever you want and pick up whatever you want.’”

That’s how easy it is to start a community cleanup or adopt a spot through Green Team.

“What can I do?” Bigham asked. “How do you sign up for Adopt-a-Spot? They told me how and the rest is history.”

Just reach out to Green Team and tell them a spot you would like to keep clean. Green Team will provide all the tools you and your group need: Safety vests, litter sticks, gloves, garbage bags.

“My philosophy has just always been, if everybody could just donate one hour a month to whatever their cause is, what a different world we’d live in,” Bigham said.

That’s not to say it’s always an easy job.

“Now don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Was it hot this summer? Yes. And I’ve been out there in the winter and it’s cold. But it’s all what you make of it.”

While the weather may not be perfect, the work matters. Even when litter finds its way back along Drake Avenue where Bigham and her group just cleaned, imagine how much worse it would be with litter piled up on top of the litter Bigham’s group collected and is no longer there.

“Sometimes the weather makes it not so much fun but, on the flip side, it’s all what you make of it,” she said. “And in the same breath, I’d like to say that because we go out every six weeks for a cleanup, there’s less trash (on the roadways).”

If you would like to join Bigham’s group, just email her at mahgib@hotmail.com .

“I just tell myself that people see us out there on those Saturday mornings working hard and hopefully less people are rolling down that window and throwing their trash out. We hope that because we’re out there that we are making that positive impact where someone might think twice about littering.”

But instead of getting discouraged, Bigham has bigger dreams. Someday, she wants a cleanup large enough that they can begin collecting litter south along Patton Road.

“That would be lovely.”