For Edison girl, volunteerism is alive at any age
15-year-old organizes cleanup of Papianni Park
BY TOM CAIAZZA
Staff Writer

EDISON - When Ashleigh Barral sought a position volunteering with the township, she ran into an age-old problem: she was too young.

But the ambitious teenager was eager to do her part, despite not meeting the township's minimum age requirement of 16 years.

Ashleigh, 15, organized a cleanup of Papianni Park - overlooking the municipal building she was not allowed to volunteer in - on Saturday, hoping to improve an area of town she loves, as well as add to her college admissions résumé.

"When Ashleigh and I walk the lake, she gets upset with the trash," said Andrea Barral, Ashleigh's mother.

Andrea Barral said that she and her daughter walk the one-mile track around Lake Papianni at nights in the summertime and that Ashleigh would comment on how the park needed to be cleaned up.

"Whenever I come here, it is pretty disgusting," Ashleigh said. "I need community service for college; I wanted to work at the animal shelter."

Knowing the shelter would have to wait until next year, Ashleigh put together a group of more than 20 high school students from Edison High School, hung fliers across town, and sought the aid of the township Department of Public Works and her mother's company, Turtle & Hughes Inc., to make the cleanup a reality.

"The DPW gave bags and rakes and will pick up the garbage bags when we're done," Andrea Barral said. "My company donated gloves and pizza."

In four hours, in well over 90-degree heat, Ashleigh and her band of volunteers collected more than 15 bags of garbage, and one half-buried plastic sled, from around Lake Papianni. Andrea Barral said that other patrons of the park began pitching in and many had nice words to say about what the kids were trying to accomplish.

"It's pretty cool that some people who came thanked the kids," Andrea Barral said.

Ashleigh said that she was happy to have friends willing to clean up a park at 8 a.m. on a hot, Saturday morning.

"You have to have some really nice people who want to help the community," she said.