ABOVE: Fairmont Lakes Foundation Board Member Jim Utermarck holds a FLF-branded garbage bag, one of many available at Gomsrud Park on the shores of Budd and Hall lakes. Utermarck said trash bags and gloves should be used when picking up garbage, as well as common sense.

FAIRMONT – With years of experience cleaning up the lakes, the Fairmont Lakes Foundation (FLF) is looking to stir up some more help from the public with monthly Lake Cleanup Challenges.

For years, FLF has held its cleanup in the spring, getting together with other groups to do a big cleanup of one lake. It was as a member of a larger fishing organization that FLF Board Member Jim Utermarck got his inspiration.

“I’m a member of a lot of different organizations, one of them being Muskies Inc,” he said. “There’s a chapter up in Brainerd that had a spring cleanup challenge. What they did was send a photo of yourself at a landmark, park or boat ramp on the lakes and show that you cleaned up. They were going to put everybody in the hat for that one thing, and they got a $50 gift card. I said, ‘Why can’t we just do that down here every month, May through September?'”

As for why now is the time to do so, Utermarck said they want to attract interest for people being good stewards of the lakes.

“Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, the people who live on the lake are the ones who are supposed to take care of all this stuff,'” he said. “Actually, everyone in town is a stakeholder in the lakes, because a lot of different people use the lakes. People who don’t live on the lakes. There are people who live on the lakes that don’t use them.”

From there, Utermarck presented the idea to FLF and got their approval before it got shared on social media for the event’s first iteration in May. After that, the information was spread and rules laid out.

“Obviously you include your name,” he said. “If they email it to us, we have their email; they can put their phone number on it. You send it in to those, whether it’s Facebook or the info@fairmontlakesfoundation.com [email]. Then we get it. At our meeting every month, we pick a winner. We just throw your name in a hat, and then we draw it out.”

To be considered, the photo must be taken at a recognizable landmark, lake or park.

“There’s five boat ramps in town,” Utermarck said. “There’s one on George, Budd, Sisseton, there’s several on Hall and there’s one on Amber. It could be one of the parks near the lakes. You got Sylvania, Ward, Gomsrud, Amber Lake. Any of those parks, just take a picture of yourself cleaning up with a bag of trash somewhere that is recognizable.”

While they want people to pick up whatever garbage they can, Utermarck cautioned against doing anything that could put you in danger.

“I don’t want someone to go out in 10 feet of water and try and pick up a water softener or something that may have drifted into the lake,” he said. “Years ago I believe they would put old water softeners on the lake bank to try and stop erosion.”

So far, Utermarck said he has heard good responses to the program and its layout.

“Everyone has been 100 percent positive behind it, thinking it’s a great idea,” he said. “I hope it works out. I hope we can continue to do it. It’s just trying to educate people that it isn’t just the people on the lake that have to clean up. Anyone who uses a lake should try and be good stewards of the lake, or the parks for that matter.”

For those planning to participate in this, Utermarck offered them key pieces of advice.

“Make sure you have gloves on,” he said. “Just because you never know what rusty nail, something on a piece of wood, a piece of dock that floats around, broken glass. Always have gloves, always wear shoes, or water shoes so, if you’re in the water, you don’t cut yourself on something that could be in there.”

While this current stretch will run from May to September, Utermarck said they hope to expand the program in the future so it can run continuously throughout the year.

The winner each month receives a $50 Chamber Bucks certificate. For more information visit fairmontlakesfoundation.com/, facebook.com/fairmontlakes/, or email info@fairmontlakesfoundation.com.