Clean Up Give Back - OPRF Chapter

Josh (OPRF senior) helped the Riverside Daisy Troop navigate their Earth Day cleanup at their last troop meeting. With Josh and Talia's help, the Daisies removed more than 25 pounds of litter from the area surrounding the Des Plaines River. That's a lot of candy wrappers!

Riverside Daisies - thank for inviting us to help you earn your Earth Day patch!

Checkout Josh's blog post!

Helping a Local Daisy Troop Earn Their Earth Day Patch Last week, Talia, a CUGB volunteer, and I went to Riverside to help a local Daisy troop with their Earth Day cleanup. We spent about 30 minutes walking through the forest preserve near the Des Plaines River. All the girls were so excited to pickup trash and they were even comparing who had the coole...

Ben (OPRF Civics Student) and his family removed more than 18 pounds of litter (that's A LOT of litter) from Thatcher Woods and Sunset Bridge Meadow this weekend. No better way to spend an unseasonably warm day than doing something good for the community! Yay, Ben!

Malcolm, a teen board member, decided to organize a cleanup for OPRF's Environmental Club.

𝑶𝒏 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝑵𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝟏𝟒 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉 𝒔𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒍 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝟑 𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝟏𝟗𝟑 𝒑𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒉 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕!




Instagram: .oprf

Litter Collection: Double the Effort, Dramatic Results During this holiday weekend trash clean-up, a group of teenage volunteers from Oak Park and River Forest High School truly embodied what Thanksgiving is all about. This group of 14 students spent three hours on a cold Saturday morning cleaning up trash at Thatcher Woods. A determination was shown th...

Smashing Pumpkins for Good!

Checkout the latest from Clean Up Give Back - OPRF Chapter's teens. And, a giant thanks to OPRF's Civics program and OPRF's AP Enviro teachers for always supporting us as we strive to build community through environmental sustainability!

Smashing Pumpkins for Good Halloween’s over, college applications are in, and fall foliage is at its peak. What better time to hold a pumpkin smash! Last Saturday, our chapter of Clean Up Give Back set up a table at the local community pumpkin smash (sponsored by Roosevelt Middle School's Green 4 Good volunteers and SCARCE)...

One beautiful fall morning and 20 community members = 140 pounds of litter removed from Sunset Bridge Meadow!

OPRF Civics Students
Urban Village Church-West
Clean Up Give Back - OPRF Chapter



Forest Preserve District of Cook County

Looks Can be Deceiving: Cleaning a Litter Hotspot! On Saturday, October 28, 2023, the Oak Park chapter of Clean Up Give Back partnered with Urban Village Church to clean up Sunset Bridge Meadow Forest Preserve. There were 20 of us in total, including some families from the church and some OPRF civics students like myself! I had heard that Sunset Bri...

Alena (OPRF Civics Student) organized a cleanup in Thatcher Woods last weekend! She and her friends removed several bags of litter from the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, sorted out the recyclables, and enjoyed a beautiful fall day while doing something good for the community! Yay, Alena!

Willa, our inspiring teen board member, has reached a huge milestone - she's the force behind over 𝟯𝟮𝟬 𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 of trash being removed from the environment! Check-out her story below.

Keep walking, Willa! We're proud of you :)

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What is "Walks with Willa"? I’m Willa, and I started an Instagram account called “” to track how much trash I pick up in my community! In 2021, I started going on walks with friends and family to pick up litter. At the time, I was working independently of an organization and was looking for a way to help...

Thanks to Julia and Milo (OPRFCivics Students) for cleaning up Thatcher Woods today. They worked for 4 hours and gathered more than 6 bags of trash!

A huge shout out to the Civics teachers, Environmental Science teachers, and Enviro Club at OPRF for encouraging their students to volunteer their time at BarrieFest - Takeout 25 Green Dining Hub Launch this weekend!

Over 40 OPRF students patrolled the park for litter, sorted waste from the food festival, and helped the restaurants breakdown their stalls. They collected 194 pounds of waste with nearly 2/3 being diverted from the landfill. And, they did it all with a smile on their faces!

These kids are brilliant at building community through environmental stewardship.

Blog from one of our teen board members: https://cugboprf.wixsite.com/home/post/barrie-fest-where-there-s-food-there-s-waste

Josh O. explains how we build community through environmental stewardship!

Barrie Fest: Where There's Food, There's Waste Our chapter of Clean Up - Give Back (CUGB) partnered with the Southeast Oak Park Community Organization and Takeout 25 to manage sustainability at the 20th annual BarrieFest! As soon as we were set up, we had three BarrieFest organizers, separately, come up to us and thank us greatly for being there...

This is the crew that cleaned up after the festival was over... the least glamorous job and they killed it! A giant thanks to this crew for topping off a great day.

SEOPCO South East Oak Park Community Organization, Takeout 25 Oak Park

SEOPCO South East Oak Park Community Organization SEOPCO is a neighborhood organization serving the residents of South East Oak Park, Illinois.