KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Church members are upset about tires and other garbage left on church property.
As part of FOX4’s continuing campaign to stop illegal dumping, church leaders shared some surprises they found cleaning up their community.
New Seasons Christian Church, located at North 3rd Street and Richmond Avenue, provides a dumpster for anyone in the neighborhood to use.
The church pays the bill, even though most of the trash comes from the surrounding neighborhood. Pastor Tim Jones says that’s ok, because he knows the garbage won’t end up creating blight.
Still, that didn’t stop someone from dumping about 150 tires in a wooded area the church owns across the street.
After a long cold winter, Jones believes the tires may have been hidden from view for some time.
Volunteers from the church agreed to remove all the tires and trash, and clean up the site.
But Jones said he wasn’t prepared for the bill he received to get rid of the tires.
“It’s expensive,” Jones said. “It was $3 a tire. So we had to have a company come out. They ended up counting 150 tires. It ended up costing us $456. It’s one thing, the price. We do a lot of outreach ministries for the community and things, but that’s taking away from ministries and things to help the community out.”
Jones is filing a police report about the illegal dumping, but is concerned about having to continue to pay to keep it clean if more tires show up.
He’s talking to the Unified Government about what can be done to discourage dumping and already plans to clear out some of the brush and trees to make it a less attractive dumping site.
The church leader says no one benefits from trash and garbage left in the neighborhood. By cleaning it up quickly, regardless of the cost, the church is sending a message that a trashy neighborhood will not be tolerated.
