ONLY FIVE volunteers turned up for this week’s Tidy Towns clean-up in town and the message was clear from volunteers: ‘we need more people to help’.
“We’ve six 0r seven people coming out on average. We badly need more volunteers because we wouldn’t have to do it as often if we had more people,” said Joan O’Regan of Tralee Tidy Towns. Tralee is looking to retain its Gold Medal status it has won for the past two years.
The clean-ups began on the first of May and each week a different street is selected. Already the group have worked their through Denny Street and a nice chunk of Rock Street and they will also be organising clean-ups on major roads.
“We’re thinking of a new a approach of doing clean-ups in the daytime during working hours and asking the business people to come out and help us for a half an hour or so,” said Joan .
As of yet, the group have not contacted Tralee businesses it’s something they are about to launch, but as the days get warmer and the evenings brighter they are finding it difficult to attract volunteers.
“We just can’t seem to get the message across. People say we’re doing a wonderful job, but they’re not willing to come out themselves. If everybody cleaned up in front of their own place it would make our job so much easier, that’s what we’ll be asking the businesses to do on a regular basis not just for the summer.”
“We have big change this year with abolition of Tralee Town Council,” said Greta O’Rourke Secretary Tralee Tidy Towns. “People may give out about the council, but realistically they do a huge amount of work.”
“People are going to see a big difference unless they start taking ownership of a few of the things the council did,” she said.
“Now is a good time to come together in the better weather, have a bit of fun, get to know one another so that people don’t feel they are on their own or that people are looking at them doing this, its much easier to do in a big group. Now is the time to do it before businesses and individuals are left with quite a big problem after the town council is abolished on May 31st,” said Gretta.
This year is especially important as Tralee has been chosen to represent Ireland in the Entente Florale which is a European wide Tidy Towns competition which focuses on good use of space and green spaces in particular.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase our fabulous town, we’ve a wonderful location and wonderful facilities, but we need to get off our backsides and present us at our best,” said Joan O’Regan.