North Lake Service Learning students in front of Lake Vilbig during the 20th anniversary cleanup.
Lake Vilbig is a 130-acre lake with approximately six miles of shoreline, located in south Irving. What once was a series of gravel pits is now a beautiful lake surrounded by the homes of the Irving Lake Association. On Saturday, April 20, the ILA marked the 20th year of its twice-yearly organized lake cleanups with what else but… another cleanup. A total of 47 volunteers, which included eight North Lake College Service Learning students and one Irving Youth Action Council teen, met at Cypress Cove Park for breakfast prior to heading out in boats to clean the lake and shoreline. When all was done, the items collected totaled 1,740 pounds of trash and recyclables. After the cleanup, the ILA Social Committee prepared and served a hamburger/hot dog lunch, followed by drawings for prize giveaways.
As they have done for many years, Keep Irving Beautiful provided the trash and recycle bags, vests, litter pickers and gloves, and also coordinated with Solid Waste Services to provide landfill access and weight information. The North Lake students who participated were part of KIB’s Service Learning partnership with the college, which has been active since 2008.
"It is difficult to grasp the fact that we have been participating in the Lake Vilbig beautification events for 20 years now,” said ILA President Greg Hoffmann. “When we first started the cleanups, we were taking multiple tons of trash out of the lake. After several years, we seemed to have leveled off at around 2,000 pounds during each event. A very big thank you goes to the 47 volunteers, including the incredible students from North Lake College and KIB, who gave up their time to make this cleanup another successful event. Lake Vilbig is now a prettier and healthier place for all of us."
Keep Irving Beautiful is a non-profit, grassroots, leadership organization dedicated to educating our community about litter abatement, recycling, and beautification in order to help preserve the health and promote the social and economic prosperity of our city. As an award winning affiliate of Keep America Beautiful and Keep Texas Beautiful, KIB reaches out to and partners with all sectors of our city including government, business, church, cultural, neighborhood, educational and civic organizations. For more information, click here or call the KIB office at 972-721-2175.