Joliet’s Bicentennial Bluffs neighborhood holding annual community cleanup

The Bicentennial Bluffs Neighborhood Association in Joliet is seeking volunteers for its annual spring community cleanup and bake sale.

Volunteers will meet at 10 a.m. May 31 at the St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church gym, 310 N. Broadway St. in Joliet.

Candace Johnson, who co-leads the Bicentennial Bluffs Neighborhood Association with Sara Stovall, said she hopes both neighborhood residents and the greater community will come out to help.

“This is a great opportunity to meet neighbors, boost neighborhood involvement, show pride in our neighborhood and city, work with each other to brighten our streets and reinvest in our area,” Johnson said. “Plus, we offer four hours of community service hours for coming out to help.”

The Bicentennial Bluffs Neighborhood Association will provide all supplies, including garbage bags, gloves, pickers and doughnuts.

All volunteers may enter the event’s raffle, buy items from the bake sale and join other volunteers for a complimentary lunch when the cleanup is done.

Stovall, who moved into the St. John’s neighborhood in 2010 and began co-leading the Bicentennial Bluffs Neighborhood Association with Johnson two years later, praised the neighborhood in a 2018 Herald-News story about the neighborhood cleanup.

Many times, when people think of the St. John’s area, they think of the problems at the former Evergreen Terrace housing complex, Stovall had said, which is rather unfair for a quiet neighborhood with so much character and history.

“It has a lot of old limestone homes, and you can hear the chimes from St. John’s church,” Stovall previously said. “It has that ‘old neighborhood’ feel. It makes you feel like you’re in a different time.”

For more information, visit facebook.com/BicentennialBluffsPage or email bicentennialbluffs@yahoo.com.