Grand Central District Cleans Up for Pride

Posted by: Angelina Bruno in Community, St. Petersburg June 13, 2018

Brian Eddleman, left and Kate Thorpe use trash grabbers to collect garbage as part of a quarterly cleanup effort. The association planned this weekend’s cleanup to beautify the district before the St. Pete Pride weekend on June 22.

The Grand Central District Association headed a cleanup on Saturday, June 9, in the Grand Central District in St. Petersburg. The quarterly cleanup and landscaping sessions are part of the association’s contract with the city of St. Petersburg, requiring each city district association to do one cleanup a quarter. St. Petersburg districts like the Skyway Marina and Edge districts participate in the sessions as well.

Saturday’s cleanup efforts brought in about twenty volunteers, said Kate Thorpe, Grand Central District Association board member. Typically it’s just board members and their partners she said, but this pre-St. Pete pride beautification brought out more volunteers than usual.

In addition to picking up trash and light landscaping work, the team replaced broken street lights.

“One thing we’re doing is switching out the lights that don’t work for Pride,” said Thorpe. The association also changes out the lights in December for the holiday season. “We always schedule right around the holidays, so as people come into the district to shop it looks as good as it possibly can.”

Trash grabbers and other resources for city-wide cleanups are supplied by non-profit organization Keep Pinellas Beautiful. The Grand Central District Association is a 501c3 non-profit organization made up of business owners, community members, residents and professionals, according to the association’s website.