Annual '20 Minute Makeover' takes place across the city ahead of Earth Day
Ahead of Earth Day this Monday, April 22, the annual 20 Minute Makeover took place Friday.
"We want to give back to the community, we're part of the community here, so we want to come back out and make sure everybody is enjoying their time, cleaning up around the city and just beautifying London,” said volunteer Cleveland Brownlee, district operations manager with Better Bin.
If you didn't get the chance to get involved Friday, Londoners can also participate in London Clean & Green’s community-wide clean up day Saturday.
"It's been a long-standing program, 29th year, it has grown from a small group of people to thousands of Londoners that take part and take pride in their area, where they live,” said Jay Stanford, the director of Climate Change, Environment and Waste Management with the City of London.
Earth Day is celebrated annually on April 22, and was first held in 1970. It is now recognized globally.
Volunteer Carmela Ianni has been involved with the Clean and Green program since its inception and said she has noticed a positive change.
"Huge difference, specifically with graffiti. This is how we started off, it was graffiti and garbage clean up, litter, trash...big difference,” explained Ianni.
Ward 7 Coun. Corinne Rahman was on hand Friday, and said there is still more work to be done.
"It’s something this council is committed to, however, we also have to have the financial commitment, and that's something we worked on in the multi-year budget, but absolutely we could have done more,” explained Rahman.
The city is also holding it's third annual EarthFest this weekend, celebrating environmental action through music, art, activities, vendor booths, and green food and fun.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Triple murder or manslaughter? Sudbury jury deliberating fate of man responsible for fatal firebombing
After a lengthy series of instructions from Justice Dan Cornell, a Sudbury jury is deliberating whether to find a suspect guilty of three counts of manslaughter or three counts of murder.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’