Sophomore Coon Rapids High School football players cleaned up the sidewalk/trail along Coon Rapids Boulevard from Anoka-Ramsey Community College to Mercy Hospital Saturday. Steven McKenzie (right) tosses some litter into a plastic bag held by Jake Volkman.

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Managing editor

The 2008 Coon Rapids High School Cardinal football squad gave back to the community Saturday.

Squad members spent four hours Aug. 16 cleaning up city and county parks and other public property, including Anoka-Ramsey Community College.

This was the second year of the Community Day service project, in which members of the Cardinal football squad volunteered for the cleanup work with parents volunteering to supervise.

There were 133 players plus 37 parent volunteers involved in Saturday’s cleanup project, according to Pat Carlson, one of the program organizers from the Cardinal Football Booster Club.

There are 180 boys in the school’s football program this year.

Volunteers were up over last year, Carlson said.

In 2007, there were 109 players that volunteered from a group of 190 that went out for football at the high school, he said.

But this year the project happened before the season began.

In 2007, it took place on a Saturday during the season after the junior varsity had played in the morning.

“That was a bit hard on them,” Carlson said.

Aug. 16 was picked because while the players are now practicing, it was before the official start of the football season - the varsity plays its first game Thursday, Aug. 28.

And this Saturday (Aug. 23) was ruled out because all the players are involved in a full day of scrimmages, Carlson said.

The project was launched last year because the booster club wanted to do more than just have the players write letters and go door-to-door raising money for the football program, according to Carlson.

“We wanted the players and the football program to give back to the community that supports them,” Carlson said.

The cleanup project developed from a conversation Carlson had with Gregg Engle, city of Coon Rapids parks supervisor.

“Gregg came up with the idea,” Carlson said.

The cleanup effort began and ended at the Coon Rapids Public Works Garage on 111th Avenue.

The object was to walk the parks and trails, picking up all garbage, debris and branches and leaving all garbage bags and debris at one spot for the city’s public works crews to pick up.

The players were divided into eight groups according to year - seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen.

Accompanied by parents, they fanned out across the city for the cleanup project.

“We had a lot of comments from parents that many of the parks had very little debris to collect,” Carlson said. “Our parks are very clean.”

Areas where a lot of litter was found included the woods behind the city’s Cook Ice Arena and in Anoka County’s Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park, especially where the Mississippi River washed up on shore, he said.

Three teams of freshmen were assigned the Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park - one group starting at the trail on Mississippi Boulevard and walking to the main parking lot by the dam picking up litter en route, a second team beginning at the main parking lot, covering Dunn Island and everything in between and a third group starting at the far end of the park, near the TH 610 bridge, and walking toward the main lot by the dam.

Sophomores were delegated the task of cleanup up the Anoka-Ramsey Community College property, including the parking lot, as well as Cook Arena across from the college.

Juniors and seniors handled the city parks and trails.

And there was even time for a team to stop by and pick up debris on the vacant Port Riverwalk property, south of Coon Rapids Boulevard, which formerly housed the Coon Rapids Shopping Center and is now owned by the city.

“We covered everything we set out to clean up and it went very smoothly,” Carlson said.

“The only problem encountered was on the Erlandson Trail where there was construction taking place.”

Peter Bodley is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it