Bringham Park Clean-Up

Bringham Park is heavily wooded.  Each spring, after the snow melted, the park would be littered with windfalls.  Those are the branches and limbs that did not survive winter's icy blast and broke off from their tree.  Some of these windfalls are large enough to damage a mower and/or present a danger if they become a projectile when hit by a mower.

Around 2011 Troop 87 began a tradition of having a clean-up day.  That first-year windfalls were taken to the group campsite and piled to a height of around eight feet and burned. Seven or eight pick-up truck loads were collected in two hours.  There were 20 Scouts and parents; that's 40 man-hours of work that the Park Ranger would have had to do themselves before the first mowing of the season.  We saved the Dane County Parks Dept. a week's worth of labor.

In subsequent years firewood was used to fill the firepit of every campsite; the first campers of the season would not need to purchase or collect wood for the initial campfire.  We also stocked the camp host's firewood rack, stacked extra wood at the handicap campsite, and stacked extra wood at the shelters' campfire rings. 

After many years, the Troop was asked to relinquish this event to the Parks Department for youth restorative justice, diversion programs, and conservation/habitat restoration work through coordinated efforts between the Dane County Department of Human Services - Youth Justice and Dane County Parks initiatives.