Feb 07, 2025
For the past two decades, members of VFW Post 3746 have conducted monthly cleanups around their community in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
They are often seen hauling trash bags along the sides of roads and highways in their VFW gear, infrared vests and smiles, joined by dozens of children and adults recruited to help beautify their city of more than 75,000 residents.
“This is important to us because the VFW is about assisting veterans and their families, but also assisting its community,” VFW Post 3746 Commander John Thorne said. “This helps maintain a proactive view of the VFW in our community.”
Post 3746 volunteers have collected tons of trash along the roads and highways since beginning this initiative in 2005. They devote a weekend each month to gathering trash for a minimum of two hours and two miles, which sometimes runs longer and farther.
According to Post Quartermaster Grady Meeks, these cleanups are often coordinated with Rock Hill sanitation services, which pick up stockpiles of trash rounded together by Post 3746 members along the road.
“When doing community pickup in the city, we put the trash in bags and leave them for the city to pick up,” Meeks said. “If we are working in the county, our members will collect the trash and take it to the city dumpsters ourselves.”
To achieve this task each month, Post 3746 members recruit volunteers from local schools and JROTC programs near and around Rock Hill, as well as through word of mouth around the city.
This proactivity in recruiting and working closely with the community bodes well for Post 3746 and the image it continues cultivating within its community. According to Post Trustee Willie Williams, these efforts by his fellow Post members never go unnoticed.
“The community always responds by helping with the cleanups,” Williams said. “They also always let us know how much we mean to them through their continued support of our programs and activities.”
This article is featured in the 2024 January/February issue of VFW magazine, and was written by Ismael Rodriguez Jr., senior writer for VFW magazine.