North Lake Tahoe Bonanza: It’s been almost a month since the Xstream Clean and here’s an update for everyone on the event. If you can remember back a month, Saturday, June 7, was the first excellent weather day in a couple of weeks. We were blessed, indeed. Wow, what a great day we had.
And thanks to God, everything came together once again and as in past years, many people and organizations took on major roles.
A special thanks to the Optimists Club who provides the grill that cooks over 1,000 meals in about two hours and the carnival booths, dunk tank, cotton candy and snow cone machines and the famous bicycle safety rodeo. No one works harder than Greg McKay, delivering the dunk tank and booths at 7 a.m. We couldn’t do this without you and all our local Optimists who lend a hand!
Thanks to our Xstream veterans who ran all the major Xstream activities: Brad Deeds on clean-up, Duane Lincoln on carnival, Indra Winquest on athletic activities, Madonna Dunbar on Zero Waste, Kari Ferguson our emcee, the Feliciano on Free Lunch, Lincolns and Laramores on sweet concessions, Incline Middle School Leadership Class on hot concessions.
The barbecue was delicious thanks to Raley’s who provides wonderfully fresh, premium food for everyone who cleans and thanks to the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District who cooks over 1,000 meals of hotdogs, hamburgers and bratwursts in two hours.
The music was better than ever thanks to Luke Stevenson, Anthony the DJ and Institute of Rock plus Ryan and the Rythmetrix Hip-Hop dance group who kept the tunes flowing from noon to 4 pm.
Thanks to the Incline Middle School staff who help behind the scenes and at the event and make IMS a great place to learn and have a good time: Nichole, Claudia, Jo Dee, Phyllis, Art, Freddy, Jan, Debbie, Solar Scott and Dodgeball Steve. Incline Middle School is the perfect place for Xstream Clean headquarters.
The carnival was educational, recreational and entertaining. Thanks to the 30 elementary, middle and high school students who helped run the booths, it was a big success. Also, a big thanks to Mike Irachtubal our new JROTC Lt. Col who arranged for the climbing wall from our National Guard, which was the best run and enjoyed activity at the Xstream Clean. Mike also encouraged 42 of our JROTC cadets to clean and work the booths. Thank you JROTC cadets and leaders. Thank you to Micah Johnson who set-up, ran and put away the target practice booth from 9 a.m. until 4 pm.
Special thanks to IVGID’s Board of Trustees and IVGID’s management for major support of this event including the clean-up materials, planning help and funds and Steven Phillips, Mark and Samantha from the parks department who do a lot behind the scenes.
Thanks to this year’s sponsors:
Intero Realty, Our financial sponsor
Lake Tahoe School, our school sponsor
Empire Waste Systems, our disposal sponsor
BAR BAR BAR Pizza, our restaurant sponsor
Rotary and Mike Menath, our insurance sponsor
Incline After-School Organization, our organizational sponsor
Thank you, Bonanza for all the wonderful “Xstream” news leading up to the big event.
So how did we do with the clean-up? It is estimated that we had about 30 percent less people on Saturday than we did on Sunday last year, but we were more efficient and cleaned an estimated 6,800 lbs of litter in about one hour, down only 24 percent from last year’s 9,000 lbs. We were better at litter clean-up organizing this year and covered 80 percent of Incline’s streets. The good news is that the people who cleaned the same areas as previous years reported that they found less litter in the same space as previous years. This could mean that our community is becoming more litter conscience and we are littering less and cleaning up along the way. This is great news!
With our increased efficiency and an increase back to about 1,000 people next year we could clean 100 percent of Incline Village and Crystal Bay in 2009. How can we get our numbers back to 1,000? Many have asked to move Xstream Clean back to Sunday. With baseball, spring soccer and other Saturday activities, many of our usual Xstream Cleaners were absent. We’re still seeking input. If we move back to Sunday, Xstream Clean 2009 will be on June 7 again next year.
Thank you Incline Village!
Chris Laramore is the director of Xstream Clean.
Special to the Bonanza