Community Steps Up To Help Oxley Nature Center For United Way's Day of Caring

For the United Way Day of Caring, the City of Tulsa and City Year mobilized volunteers to clean up Oxley Nature Center.

Volunteers spread out to clean up trash from the landfill that washed out during the flood on Bird Creek last May. The trash covered several acres, but part of it has been cleaned over the summer.

Related Story - Tulsa's Oxley Nature Center Cleaning Up After Recent Flooding

About 120 people worked Friday, September 9 to pick up trash buried and forgotten long ago. The work could hardly be more meticulous; it requires digging out pieces of plastic that are covered in dirt and tangled in vines and branches.

"How far it was taken out was definitely surprising," said Tyler Perkins, with the City of Tulsa. "How much it's caught in the trees and buried, it's a little shocking."

Volunteers have cleaned several acres by hand, over the summer, filling hundreds of bags with debris. And there's still a lot more.

"To be faced with the mess that was left from the flooding, was pretty shocking, but I'm glad be a part of cleaning it up" said Hollis McAllister, with City Year.

The city is covering the old landfill with dirt and rocks to enclose and protect it from the next flood. Much of the woods at Oxley grew up over landfill space that is still vulnerable along Bird Creek.

The center's director hopes to start rebuilding the trail that was lost during the flood, as they working to get Oxley ready for fall school field trips, that start next month.