News : River R.A.T.S. readying plans for Aug. 8 clean-up

In just over 1 month, the Cedar River R.A.T.S. will take to the Cedar in one big pack and make one big impact on our Cedar River!

Mark your calendar and make plans to join us on Saturday, August 8 @ 9:00 AM at the Vinton Park Boat Ramp…we’ll meet there and have a brief safety discussion, pass out your supplies, and hit the water! Our route this year will take us down almost 12 miles of the Cedar from Vinton to Wildcat, we’ll stop @ Benton City Park/Campground for a homemade lunch served by some of the best “Landsharks” around! We’ll offload all of the ‘treasures’ we’ve collected up to that point, reload our supplies and after lunch, we’ll hit the water again and head to Wildcat. At Wildcat, the Landsharks will meet us again and we’ll offload the rest of the trash and debris that we’ve taken out of the Cedar.

The Cedar River R.A.T.S. are made up 100% of volunteers and we would love to have you join our ‘pack’. We make every effort to recycle all that we can, and salvage any scrap metal that we find, and we find a LOT of everything. Tires, windows, water heaters, picnic tables and even safes ~ you name it, we’ve found it.

Even if you can’t commit to the entire route, any help you can provide is much needed and greatly appreciated. Don’t want to hit the water, but like to bake? How about a pan of brownies for the meal? Don’t have a boat or canoe or kayak but want to help? How about calling ahead and making a ‘reservation’ with one of the boaters for a spot on board? Have a canoe but not sure how this works? Our R.A.T.S. in boats will come to you periodically and unload what you’ve collected. Going to be gone that day but want to help? How about a few packages of hot dogs & buns for the lunch? Or chips? Anything you can do to help is something that we will be grateful for.

If you have any questions or would like to pre-register for our clean up, please call Tami @ 319-558-7476. The first 40 people that arrive at the Parks Ramp will receive a commemorative Tee – designed by Dan Engledow and printed by Kim at OuterEdge Screenprinting. The shirts are made possible for our clean up by the Vinton Izaak Walton League.

Please watch our local media over the next few weeks for more information on our 2015 clean up, our 2015 sponsors and some pictures of ‘treasures’ from past clean ups!