Carsonites share lunch at the store after a roadside cleanup session.
In April 2018, Elisabeth Meir (then treasurer of the Carson Community Association) took the lead in organizing a roadside clean-up along State Hwy 567. The highway has become quite a busy road and accumulation of trash along the verges becomes unsightly over time. Since this is a main thoroughfare for most Carsonites, it is in the interest of the community to help remove the trash.
More than a dozen neighbors gathered at the Carson Cafe and Grocery premises at 9 am on April 14 and split into half a dozen teams. Each team, armed with a handful of large trash bags, took responsibility for picking up the trash along sections of the highway. It was surprising how quickly the trash bags filled up.
Back at the store, volunteers picked through the trash to pick out recyclables (plastic bottles, aluminium cans, other metal, cardboard), and other volunteers loaded the bags and bins of sorted trash onto the back of their pickup trucks, ready to haul into the recycling center and dump in Taos.
CCA provided pizza lunch (including a vegan option) for the cleanup crew. The day turned out sunny and relatively warm, and we were able to enjoy catching up with neighbors over lunch outside.