Canadian Volunteers Commit to Keeping Canada Clean, Green and Litter-Free during PITCH-IN CANADA’s 2008 Operation: Clean Sweep

Hundreds of thousands of Canadian volunteers will sweep through their local
communities during PITCH-IN Week’s Operation: Clean Sweep April 21-27, 2008, armed with free large yellow PITCH-IN Week garbage/recycling bags. They will clean up unsightly litter and illegal dumping sites that plague our communities, and undertake over 12,000 other educational and action based eco-projects during the annual campaign organized by PITCH-IN CANADA.
The 42nd annual PITCH-IN Week campaign involves volunteers from schools, community groups, youth groups, business improvement associations and many more community based organizations who will participate in projects ranging from cleanups and fix ups in their communities, composting and recycling programs, tree planting, eco-fairs, energy conservation, and restoration of the natural environment.

Groups interested in participating in 2008 PITCH-IN Week, and receiving the free PITCH-IN Week bags for their project, can simply register online at www.pitchin.ca. The website provides all of the information required for communities and volunteers to plan their activities.
Dubbed “Canada’s Eco-Army” by PITCH-IN CANADA Project Manager, Misha van Veen, who explains “PITCH-IN Week involves more Canadian volunteers than we have as members of our National Defense Services including our Reservists.”Quite possibly the largest yet most unrecognized collection of volunteers in Canada, they have been keeping our local waterways, roads, parks, streets, sidewalks, and highways clean and litter-free, while educating their fellow Canadians on ways to reduce, reuse, refuse and recycle, since 1967,” adds van Veen.
PITCH-IN Week’s OPERATION: Clean Sweep is made possible each year by the support of the official campaign sponsors as well local municipal patrons. Local project coordinators who register their PITCH-IN Week projects with PITCH-IN CANADA receive free materials, including the free PITCH-IN Week garbage/recycling bags, supplied by the official sponsors of the campaign which include TD’s Friends of the Environment Foundation, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, The Sunoco-Suncor Energy Foundation, BC Hydro Power Smart, The Government of British Columbia, El-En Packaging Co Ltd., Quikki, and FedEx.
“After 42 campaigns, we know that Canadian volunteers, and more specifically PITCH-IN volunteers are committed to their community and their environment,” says van Veen, adding that many communities have been involved with PITCHIN CANADA Week for decades. “Generations of volunteers are now passing along the tradition of PITCH-ING IN. We are here to support their activities and give them the ideas, and resources that make their projects possible.”
For more information about PITCH-IN Week and PITCH-IN CANADA, a nonprofit, charitable, voluntary organization which was formed in British Columbia in 1967 by six volunteers who started cleaning up local beaches, go to www.pitchin.ca, or email pitch-in@pitch-in.ca.
– 30 –
For information about local groups participating in your area contact
misha@pitch-in.ca.