Wayne Fetman decided to have his project in the Self-Expression and Leadership Program be about cleaning up. He had heard that Friends of the Chicago River was having its annual spring cleaning, the Chicago River Day, on May 10, and he decided to make sure his local community participated.
In all, Fetman managed to get about 70 people to come volunteer at two different river sites (Trail Way and Park Avenue West0 from his Highland Park Community for a day of cleanup and celebration. Volunteers worked side by side from nine in the morning to noon to collect and sort trash for recycling, remove unneeded brush, and learn about the Chicago waterway.
The entire Chicago River day had almost 4,000 volunteers working along 100 miles of waterway. Fetman himself worked with one of his teams at the Danny Cunniff Park, and worked hard to remove buckthorn and other invasive vegetation.