Roadside angels

The sun hid behind darkening clouds on a recent spring afternoon and the wind began to pick up, blowing dust and debris into the air. But as most in the Lowcountry braced for the pending storm by hunkering down inside, Huger resident Sybil Mitchell, and friends Marilyn Varner and Darlene Lozano, did the opposite. They hit the road.

As Adopt-A-Highway volunteers, the trio was determined to make sure a section of Cainhoy Road was free and clear of trash, no matter what Mother Nature had in store.

“Even though they’re little, we pick them up, too!” said Varner, as she reached down to gather a cluster of cigarette butts discarded on the roadside. “They’re pretty obvious. Motorists flick them through the window, so they don’t go very far.”

“It’s the worst,” added Mitchell. “You would think people would be a little more sensitive, particularly when it’s dry season here. It is the number one piece of trash.”

As a few cars and trucks whizzed by, just a few feet away, Varner and Mitchell eyed the ground looking for items to collect while Lozano followed in a vehicle. While cigarette butts are the top item people toss, things that relate to eating and drinking are not far behind.

“You would think they could certainly wait until they got where they were going – somewhere where they can actually trash it,” said Varner. “But that’s not usually the case.”

Mitchell is the leader of the group and has a special affinity for the work they do. They work in “grids” to enhance safety, she explained, and always wear reflective vests and carry air horns (to ward off animals if needed).

“We’ve been at this for well over 10 years,” added Mitchell. “Our position is this – if God created heaven and earth in six days and it was good for him, it should be good for us. And we should be good stewards.”

The group believes a clean environment is good for the soul – and can have a lasting impact not only on individuals, but the community as a whole.

“There is something spiritual – in that minute you pick up that trash off the ground it does something to you!” said Mitchell, as she walked along the roadside. “Visually, it’s defeating. And the minute you pick it up there is something that just happens…you feel better. So for us, Earth Day is all year round!”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she continued. “And most people don’t know this, but we do what’s called ‘memorial pick-ups.’ If we hear about a death in the community…we’ll sneak in and pick up along the roadway so that when family comes to visit, it welcomes you in an environment that is clean.”

Their work is most certainly making a difference in this rural community. The group is part of the Adopt-A-Highway program of Palmetto Pride and is only required to pick up four times a year. But Mitchell and crew go above and beyond. Last year, they collected more than 14,000 pounds of trash over 135 days.

“Look at the results,” said Varner, who called their efforts a labor of love. “It is a service that is task- and results-oriented.”

“This roadway can’t look like this, and wouldn’t look like this, if you only picked up four times a year,” said Mitchell, “because you have to constantly revisit and clean up. What we have found is the traffic primarily is people who do not live in the community. We can track it. We know the trash, when it’s high and when it’s low, and it tends to correspond with when businesses are closed…or during the holidays.”

They get supplemental help from the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Corrections, noted Mitchell, who is the only local resident part of the team. Both Varner and Lozano live out of town. They now have several local teams that spread out in the community as part of the program. When they first started, “it was an absolute mess,” said Mitchell. It took them almost a month to pick up 3.5 miles of trash.

“What I’ve tried to evoke into the residents is they have to look at their own individual property and beyond their property…For us, we don’t live on this road, but we drive down it. We have to see the big picture and the community is our extended yard. And because it’s a bigger yard, I want to be able, when I drive down, look at it and say it’s beautiful.”

Statewide, more than 545,000 Adopt-A-Highway volunteers have removed some 62 million pounds of trash from roads and natural areas over the last 20 years, reducing litter in the Palmetto State by 60 percent. Mitchell and her teammates are happy to keep up the good work in their neck of the woods – rain or shine.

“It’s the easiest way you can have an impact immediately on the environment,” added Mitchell. “And everyone can do it! It doesn’t require anything special. Just get out there!...There is no way in the world we could do this if we didn’t love the community.”

For information on becoming an Adopt-A-Highway volunteer, visit https://www.palmettopride.org/get-involved/pickup-programs/adopt-a-highway/.