In accordance with the proclamation of the Governor, the Mayor of Montpelier, Vermont, observed April 25 as Arbor Day and Clean-Up Day. Outdoor exercises were held, including an address by the Mayor. The children were not required to attend school in the afternoon provided they spent two hours cleaning up the streets and grounds about their homes.
Toledo school children were divided into squads and to each was given a section of a ward. Each day a ward was cleaned and the results were printed in the next day’s papers, thus creating rivalry among the children.
Everywhere the Boy Scout has found his level in the Clean-Up Campaign. It is a Scout law that he must be clean. Almost every troop of Scouts has done its full quota in civic, local or county clean-ups. In patrol or by troop they care for school grounds, public grounds, make systematic campaigns against flies and mosquitoes, destroy their breeding places; plant trees, bushes and shrubs; in general, keep the streets free of litter and waste of all kinds. Divided into squads, they do much for city betterment. Vacant lots, waste property, fields and streets are rid of tin cans, milk bottles, scrap iron, weeds, and in their places flowers, vegetables and shrubbery planted; unsightly billboards removed. Sometimes they are paid for their work by the Civic Leagues, as in the case of Cornwall, N. Y., and St. Paul, Minnesota.
In many cities the Scouts have done splendid work in inspection duty, reporting all unsanitary conditions. In patrols, troops or companies they are assigned to investigate and report to the superintendent of streets or the organization having charge of the clean-up. The inspection is done day by day as the clean-up progresses, and any oversight or unsanitary condition reported at once.
Another method of interesting children is the organization of boys and girls into what is known as City Clubs, whose duty it is to keep the streets clean. The clubs are limited to 25 members each. The members wear buttons and each one is provided with blanks on which to report. In some instances these clubs work throughout the year but usually their work is confined to the spring clean-up, in which event they attend to the general clearing up of vacant lots, back yards, school property, and cart it to the curbs for the city dump wagons to haul away.