In the chill of early morning a line of cars blinked their left turn signals to get into Lake George Ranger District parking lot. Orange cones directed cars into two lanes.
I rolled down my window and pulled up to a woman dressed in the fashionable two-toned forest green uniform favored by Ocala National Forest personnel.
She leaned in and said: “Welcome to Disney World.”
Give a day, get a day at Disney World – this works for me
I started laughing. It is 7:15 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010. Mickey Mouse is nowhere in sight. We are in Ocala National Forest, two hours north of Disney.
She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” she gasped, then handed me the form to fill out for picking up trash at the Ocala National Forest Clean-Up Day. On the form is a box to check if you are registered as a Disney volunteer. No wonder Disney was on her mind.
You see Disney has this really cool program that started January 1, 2010. They want to inspire one million people in a program called Give a Day, Get a Day. You give a day for community service and in return you get a free day at either Disney property – Florida or California.
The list of possibilities is long and diverse and included this cleanup day.
After checking in at Lake George, cars were directed to staging areas. I ended up at the Fore Lake Division with 407 other people. There were 10 divisions in all. Heather Frebe, pubic information officer for Ocala National Forest, said an estimated 2000 people came to clean up on Saturday morning, with 1322 people checking the Disney box. (you had to be preregistered with Disney to qualify the event).
essentials for trash picup
“We started out at 4 a.m. this morning,” said John Romig of Jacksonville, armed with his black garbage bag and walking the sides of a forest road with his wife Nicki, daughter Reagan and son Mitch. It is a good two-hour drive from Jacksonville to the forest.
Give a day – family
Give a day, get a day brought people to Ocala National Forest
The Romigs came well prepared with packages yellow latex kitchen gloves purchased from the dollar store. They gave me a pair and I was grateful. These gloves are a must for picking up trash.
“It is fun picking up trash,” said daughter Reagan then she gave me a look and made a pronouncement with a teenager’s grown-up wisdom: “Picking up trash is picking up trash.”
So true. And pick it up we did, at least two bags each. – beer cans were everywhere along with soda bottles, water bottles and the occasional finds of really big dump sites – sofas, household trash – time to call in the pickup trucks and serious muscle to haul that trash away.
“My daughter signed the whole family up, six of us,” said Lois Gibbons of Ocala. She was searching dirt road areas along with her husband Richard. It was the couple’s first time at a forest clean up.
Give a day – trash cleanup
“This is a beautiful place. It is land God gave us, we need to take care of it,” Lois said but she didn’t see much hope of changing behaviors that lead to throwing cans out car windows. “It is young people driving off the paved tracks throwing cans.”
Her husband asked if I know the difference between a good old boy and a redneck. Ummmm, no.
“A good old boy throws his cans in the back of his pickup truck,” said Richard. “A redneck throws them out the window.”
Now you know.
Give a day – trash disposal
And the Disney angle? Huge. Being out in the forest in the sunshine, picking up trash, would be a Disney day for me, for the Romigs and the Gibbons and so many others. Who knew picking up trash could lead to such fun and such a savings?
“We couldn’t all afford to go to Disney as a family without doing this,” Gibbons said. “My daughter worked a night shift at Munroe and she is coming out for this today.”
It is one ticket per customer no matter how many times you volunteer. The program continues until one million tickets are distributed or until December 15, 2010. To search for an activity on the Disney site, type in your zip code and look at the all or narrow the categories down to say, animals and the environment, arts and culture, children and community. Personally I loved getting outdoors and doing something positive.
What are you waiting for? Sign up to give a day. This is, as management gurus like to say, a win-win situation.
And volunteering makes a difference. Forest officials say the six hour cleanup netted 46 tons of trash in the Marion County area and 30 tons of trash in the Lake County area. Yes, it was worth it.
NOTE: this blog was written in 2010. Disney continues the Give a day, Get a Disney day campaign in 2015-2016, read about it here
Lucy Beebe Tobias is your expert for finding authentic Florida. She is a former New York Times Regional Group reporter and columnist and the author of “50 Great Walks in Florida”, University Press of Florida. Her Website is: www.Lucytobias.com
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