A trash bag filled during the Community Clean Up in Vernon (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

60-70 Trash Bags Filled

Dozens of bags filled at annual Community Clean Up

Mar 19, 2025 | 3:55 PM

Trash littering Vernon’s streets was collected and disposed of as part of the annual Community Clean Up.

Put on by Turning Points Collaborative Society, the event saw roughly 25 residents of supportive housing in Vernon, along with the same number of staff and members of the public, walk through Vernon and pick up garbage.

“This is our second annual Community Clean Up. The idea behind it is that our residents are members of our community, and we take pride in our community,” Naomi Poitras, site manager of the Crossing Supportive Housing, told Vernon Matters.

“Last year we started a Community Clean Up between all of our sites, our residents come out and join us and pick up garbage, it’s just a way to give back, be positive members of our community.”

The Community Clean Up event began at 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, and ran until 4 p.m., but by 3 o’clock dozens of trash bags had already been filled from around the supportive housing facilities, Peoples Place, Whole Sale Foods, Upper Room Mission, and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Water Main Break

Water main break leads to precautionary boil water notice in Okanagan Landing

28m ago

Flight From Police

Arraignment hearing in Vernon flight from police case pushed back

46m ago

High Pressure System

Brief burst of warmth expected to start the spring

2h ago

“I think we picked up about 60 to 70 [bags of trash], and we even got an exercise bike,” Poitras said.

“We had to stop along the way. [The roughly two dozen bags in the back of a truck at My Place] is from this kind of area. We stopped along the way at our sites at our dumpsters just because we had wagons out.”

She added the majority of the garbage collected through the afternoon was regular trash, such as wrappers, coffee cups, clothes, and the like. Turning Points staff did bring out safe boxes in case any sharps were found, but Poitras said there was “hardly any paraphernalia lying around.”

Poitras noted this was the second annual Community Clean Up, and was not related to recent concerns about the unhoused raised by area businesses and residents, which sparked a Vernon City Councillor to ask for a review of these types of social services.

Turning Points hoped to make this a consistent, annual event, though Poitras also said they were exploring the opportunity of running two Community Clean Ups each year, one in the spring after the snow melts and another in the fall before the snow covers the ground.