After 30 minutes of volunteering, 12-year-old Destiny Smith of West Baltimore finally has the hang of operating her blue trash picker, which is just about as tall as she is. The Green Street Academy sixth-grader has been cleaning up near the corner of Bloom Street and Druid Hill Avenue. She said working the picker is almost as difficult as her math class.
“I think the candy wrappers are harder to grab than the soda cans. You have to keep turning the handle to get the angle right. Then it is easy to put the stuff in the trash bag,” Smith said.
Smith and her friends from the youth advocacy group, The Tree House Project, are part of an army of nearly 100 masked-up people who turned out for the 7/11 Druid Heights Community Clean Up Saturday. Baltimore City Council Districts 7 and 11 join forces each fall to help spruce up the area. Druid Heights spans both council districts.