Equestrian group takes on highway cleanup

Mustang horses Duncan and Otter helped clean up the highways and byways between Sisters and Redmond.

A volunteer crew from Mustangs to the Rescue (MTTR) filled yellow trash-bags along Highway 126 last weekend, which Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) trucks will pick up during the week.

Kate Beardsley, executive director of the local non-profit located on Cloverdale Road, said this is one of the many service projects her volunteers participate in as their way of giving back to the community that supports MTTR's mission. They have been hoping to do this project for a while and just needed someone with the passion to make it happen.

That someone is Lene Banke-Fornalski, who arranged for their Adopt-a-Highway mile (100 to 101) with ODOT. The volunteers watched a safety video from ODOT, and once a month a crew will go out and pick up all the trash people mindlessly toss out their car windows.

Board member Sandy Mayernick said, "We choose this project because we don't just care about horses, we care about the environment and want to protect it as well."

They are also able to separate out recyclable materials by putting them in Duncan and Otters panniers, the packs the two former Ochoco Mountain wild mustangs carry across their backs.

"They are working animals," Myernick said, "and we want people to see how they could be assets to ranchers and farmers, even to homeowners with a lot of pine needles to rake every year."

Jack Homeyer says he volunteered for this project as his "way of giving back, protecting the environment, making the world a better place, and increasing recognition of MTTR." His wife, Pat, concurred and added, "And they are all such nice people to work with." She says the "land and the animals are voiceless, and I get involved because I want to give them a voice."

Anwen James, who is Beardsley's niece, has been around horses all her life and loves everything about horses. She was going to college in California, but after her visit to MTTR this past summer she decided this was where she wanted to be. She does training and helps rehabilitate abused and neglected horses. She was there on Highway 126 in the shadow of the Three Sisters picking up trash because she loves the land and the animals and wants to serve them.

For more information contact volunteer coordinator Angela Runk at 541-480-3540 or [email protected]