It started a couple of years ago after some moms who lived near Clark Park say they were tired of trash, drug use and other bad behaviors in their neighborhood park. Here is our story from August 20th, 2015 when the moms enlisted bikers in one of their first efforts.

That act led to the formation of the group Take Back Our Neighborhood Everett – North . That group meets once a week on Saturday mornings to clean up parks and alleys in north Everett. They have since added Wednesday night cleanups to their efforts. In addition to north Everett they have also been found cleaning up behind the Home Depot in south Everett.

From there the movement has spread to adopting alleys throughout Everett. People once a week have adopted an alley in their neighborhood and work to keep it clean and free of debris.

Now more groups are forming. The official offshoots of the Take Back Our Neighborhood Everett – North group include

Take Back Our Neighborhood Everett – Central with their Facebook page here.

Take Back Our Neighborhood Everett – South with their Facebook page here.

In addition to the Take Back Our Neighborhood groups others are also pitching in to push membership and participation in the City of Everett neighborhood groups. There are 19 neighborhood groups officially sponsored by the city. You can find out more about the neighborhood group closest to your home by clicking here.

There are also funds available for groups, official or not, for Community Sparks grants to fund projects to improve areas in Everett. Here is the link to our story last month about those grants.

The latest large project from the Take Back Our Neighborhood Everett folks is a city-wide clean up of all school yards in Everett before the start of the school year. The official date is September 2nd. Here are the details on that…

Take Back Our Neighborhood Everett is proud to host this event. We will be picking up garbage from our schools’ grounds. Supplies will be provided, except picker uppers. We have a very limited supply of these. Latex gloves, garbage bags and sharps containers will be onsite of each school.

If you would like to participate in this awesome event, please comment under the school name of your choice, in the comments section. Bring your boots or strong shoes, a rake if you like, and a picker upper if you have one.

If you would like to donate supplies, here is a list of what we need:

Picker uppers

Industrial garbage bags

Latex gloves, variety of sizes

Water/ice/coolers (to borrow)

If you would like the bring children, it would be at your discretion. Some of our schools have drug paraphernalia on the grounds, unfortunately. We DO NOT want children to be in contact with these items. On the flip side, if your child attends one of these schools, this could be a good learning experience, both for you and for your child(ren).

Thank you!!!

To sign up to participate or donate to help the effort contact Cate Harrington through the Take Back Our Neighborhood Everett – North page at this link.

Great to see so many people getting involved all over the city of Everett, Washington.



