Winnipeg students tackle winter’s mess in annual West End sweep

CTV’s Daniel Halmarson has more on Earth Day and how Winnipeggers worked to clean up nature.

Groups of students wielding brooms, garbage bags, and gloves swept through Winnipeg’s West End on Wednesday morning with a simple and ambitious goal—to clean up the neighbourhood.

“It’s the spring; everything’s melting,” Mabel McManus, a Grade 9 student from General Wolfe School, told CTV News. “There’s a lot of garbage and sand and not nice stuff on the ground.”

The 33rd Annual Sweep Off was hosted by the West End BIZ and involved around 200 students from schools like General Wolfe and Isaac Brock collecting trash on city streets, parks, and playgrounds.

“Our schools have been doing this for as long as I can remember,” Kenneth Salonga, McManus’ classmate, said. “Even in Grade 7, I saw the Grade 9s doing it. I looked up to them and like, ‘Wow, that’s really noble of them and now we’re doing it.’”

Wednesday’s clean-up fell on Earth Day, a global movement every April 22 promoting environmental protection and climate-friendly initiatives.

This year’s Earth Day theme is ‘Our Power, Our Planet,’ a call to community members to take action in their own neighbourhoods.

“It’s all about enabling all of us to take a look at our everyday lives,” Green Action Centre’s Mel Marginet told CTV News. “What are the things that we can improve to maybe live a little bit greener.”

Marginet said that could mean finding more ways to reduce waste or explore alternative transportation options.

“Turning one or two of those trips a week into a more sustainable mode, whether that’s carpooling, maybe looking at transit, or hopping on our bikes,” Marginet said.

Meanwhile, the Manitoba government is marking Earth Day with funding commitments into electric vehicle charging infrastructure in southeastern Manitoba and to the University of Winnipeg’s Prairie Climate Centre.

In a Wednesday news release, the province highlighted other budget items focused on the environment like extending the EV rebate program and offering free transit for youth.

The government also announced its appointing new members to its Youth Advisory Council who are committed to climate and sustainability initiatives.

“As youth, we’ve never known a world without climate change,” Andrea Sutherland, the council’s incoming chair, said during the announcement at the Manitoba Legislative Building.

“Often, Earth Day is a reminder of that, but it can also be an opportunity for something more.”