A high school cross-country team in upstate New York helped an elderly couple take out the trash Saturday -- lots of it.
Ann and Robert Dobson live in the Rochester suburb of Greece. For more than six years, garbage from a nearby shopping plaza has blown onto the Dobsons' front yard, Rochester First reported
"Last summer when I cleaned up, I filled 240 gallon trash bags of litter just in the front yard," Robert Dobson told Rochester First.
"It never stops. You pick it up, and a week later you got the same amount back out there again," Dobson told WHAM. "And if you get any strong windstorms, it's even worse."
Dobson said he does his best to keep a clean yard. But that's getting harder to do with the amount of litter blowing in their yard.
"Certainly, we want to have a nice looking yard, but it's pretty hard to when you have to go out there once a week and clean things up," he told WHAM.
The couple has lived at the same location for 50 years, and the street they live on is named for them. But this past week, the Town of Greece issued the couple a citation for not cleaning up the litter, WHAM reported.
Enter the McQuaid Jesuit cross-country team. On Saturday, several members of the squad picked up all the trash and installed a barrier fence, Rochester First reported.
People passing by also stopped to lend a hand, said Karen Donahower, whose two sons are members of the McQuaid squad.
"It wasn't just us; people were stopping. A women and a couple little girls stopped and helped with the trash cleanup and a man came over and helped with the fencing," she told Rochester First.
Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich said the town came up with an additional solution to help the Dobsons.
"They have agreed to issue locks for all the dumpsters to prevent that from happening and they also agreed to police the area behind the plaza and will pick up the trash on the Dobsons’ road," Reilich told Rochester First.
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