Baldwin turns out for clean up

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Baldwin's annual Clean Up Day brought 201 vehicles filled with unwanted items to the town hall May 1, where residents could unload four tires and one appliance for free, as well as other items for a small fee.

Toward the end of the event, a mountain of tires and an electronic store's worth of TVs sat in the parking lot being whipped by the wind as a few volunteers rummaged through the rubble to uncover hidden gems.

Zach Good (pictured) pulled a sled out of a pile of what other people had considered trash because he saw value in it.

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"They don't make them like this anymore," he said.

While his fellow workers teased Zach for being a pack-rat as he recounted the items he'd salvaged from past Clean Up Days, I began to think about the value in what he and the others digging through the junk were doing -- taking a second look to uncover useful things all around them.

If the Township takes a second look at what it already has, what will it find?

What skills and ideas do Baldwin residents already posses that can help the community plan for its future? I wonder how many people here have ideas they dismiss as "junk" that others would find value in.