As Summer Camp (2014) ends, the massive cleanup begins

Peoria Journal Star
May 2014
By Zach Berg 

CHILLICOTHE — Thousands of music fans slowly shuffled out of Three Sisters Park as the rising sun signaled the end of the Summer Camp Music Festival Monday morning.

The exodus of music fans may only take a day or two, but the cleaning of Three Sisters Park will take a couple of weeks of effort by many employees and volunteers.

Robyn Bowling of Bartonville sat under the entrance tent as hundreds and hundreds of people, with everything from tents to beers under their arms, walked back to the multitude of cars parked on the edges of the park. Bowling was a member of the event’s safety team, and as such, still had a lot of work to do.

“Everybody on the way out has been very nice. They’re telling us thank you for a great weekend of music,” Bowling said. “Now there’s mass confusion as people have realized what they’ve lost. People are needing jumper cables. I’m just here to be as helpful as possible.”

Bowling helped those in need find lost items and told individuals where they could find a locksmith to unlock a car and make new keys, but she had more to do as the day went on. “Later I’ll be searching tents and helping get those stragglers who haven’t left get out of here,” Bowling said with a chuckle.

“There will be a few straggling cars in the parking lot tomorrow,” Mike Armintrout, marketing director of Jay Goldberg Events and Entertainment, which puts on the festival, said. “Basically, a whole lot less cars and a whole lot less people tomorrow, but we will be here for awhile cleaning up.”

The cleaning process will take volunteers and employees a week or two as they tear down stages and tents while also picking up bottles and cups. In order to combat masses of garbage, those that planned the event used preemptive measures to make sure the park stayed clean.

“Our Green Team has been doing a good job cleaning as the weekend went. We had a sorting system on site, 10 to 15 people at a time separating garbage from recyclable and compostable materials,” Armintrout said. Anything not properly thrown away will be found by dozens of employees and volunteers combing the park for garbage over the next two weeks.

Though Armintrout talked about how the weather was nice the whole weekend and how that the event may have drawn more people than any previous Summer Camp before, he also knew that there was still a lot of work to be done to clean up.

(originally posted at http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140526/NEWS/140529285)