By JILL FANKHAUSER
Alaska Star

Park users may have recently noticed teenagers in yellow vests, carrying yellow bags and trash pickers, and might even be enjoying green spaces free of trash. Park users can thank the Boys & Girls Club Youth Litter Patrol for making Eagle River cleaner. The patrol is hitting parks and roadways to pick up garbage left behind by others.

A group of 10 teenagers, ages 14, 15 and 16, are working under a grant provided by Eagle River Parks and Recreation and Alaskans for Litter Prevention and Recycling to pick up trash.

Marina Richter, 15, picks up trash along the fence of the baseball diamond at Lions Park in Eagle River. The litter patrol position is her first job and she is happy to get her own paycheck. Star Photo by Jill Fankhauser

The program, launched by ALPAR, has been in existence since 1983. Currently there are 86 sites around Alaska with summer youth-led litter patrols, said ALPAR director Mary Fisher.

The municipality and Eagle River Parks and Recreation pooled a $6,000 grant together with another $6,000 grant from ALPAR to pay teens a salary to work 14 hours a week. Teens earn just a bit more than minimum wage for their work.

The litter patrol does more than pick up garbage and earn some money - they also learn job and career readiness skills.

Teens spend two hours a week on a field trip, visiting places like Providence Alaska Medical Center, to check out what types of jobs are out there. Recently they visited the Centers for Disease Control labs and the hospital’s radiology department.

“These young teens can see a career opportunity and they talk to them about what they need to do to work in that field,” said patrol supervisor Rob Sterling.

The teens are considered Boys & Girls Club employees and have gotten a taste of what it’s like to apply for a job, get a background check, be fingerprinted (a state requirement for employees working with children) and endure a job interview.

Like any other employee, they request time off, report to work on time and learn the value of a paycheck.

“I was just happy I was getting paid and I was happy I was getting paid for doing something too,” said 15-year-old Marina Richter. “It wasn’t just birthday money. I did something and I got paid for it and that was cool.”

Marina takes the bus from Peters Creek to the Boys & Girls Club in the morning to start work at 9 a.m. Her dad gave her a little good advice and told her to get to work at least 10 minutes before it’s time to clock in. She likes to get to work early and get in the work mindset.

“Marina is one my stars out here,” Sterling said. “She’s really responsible and takes the position seriously, treats it like a real job and is a pleasure to have working with us. A lot of folks are always talking about what teenagers are like, and if a majority of the teens in the world are like Marina, we’re in good shape for the future.”

Although sleeping in during the summer is fun at first, Marina said, she felt like she needed to do something and this job has been an opportunity to be outside and learn more about herself.

Desmond Brown is also spending the summer on his first job, and is proud to be earning money for the work he does.

“It’s nice to have my own money for once,” Brown said. “What I do with the money is a hard decision. Once I use it all up, I’ll be regretting the fact that I could have bought something a lot more fun than I did.”

At the end of the day, the group drops off the day’s trash collection at the Eagle River Parks and Recreation office, where it is weighed. It’s too early to tell how well the litter patrol is doing - they just started a few weeks ago - but the group collected 2,620 pounds of litter last summer.

The group wants to surpass that amount - and they just might. They recently picked up a trashed recliner and a dryer dumped off of Business Boulevard that will be added to their pounds collection tally.

The crew scours parks and public use areas like the Loretta French Fields, Lions Park, Beach Lake and Mirror Lake Park. The group makes a regular stop at the Anchorage Regional Landfill to clean up the recycling area and hits hotspots, such as the new skate park along Business Boulevard, which Barkley said generates a lot of trash.

Barkley helps the group find places that need the litter picked up and assigns them routes.

“If it looks like there is an area that needs more concentration, we’ll move them around,” she said.

Sterling said Eagle River makes their job easy. The parks are well maintained by users and that’s needed is to pick up the little things that help to keep parks pristine.

“We go around and make sure they stay that way,” Sterling said.

The group is on the lookout for the most unusual trash item and will reveal its find at a wrap-up party at the end of summer.

Reach the reporter at jillfankhauser.@alaskastar.com.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, July 9, 2009.