The Affinity Credit Union and Co-op Association celebrated the International Year of the Cooperative last week by helping clean up the Town of Davidson.

The Riverbend Co-op raked, weeded and picked up garbage at the Davidson Campground, while staff at the Credit Union did their part by cleaning up the Centennial Legacy Trail, the Senior Citizen’s Centre, the Bob Crowley Memorial Gardens and Arnold Park.

Tyler Pisiak, branch manager of the Credit Union, who helped out by weeding at Arnold Park, said the cleanup is an initiative by the Davidson co-ops to help their community who support them by buying memberships. He said co-ops around the province are taking part in the first ever-International Year by choosing their own way to celebrate it and their area.

“The International (Year of the Co-op) is more in recognition of the cooperatives around the province,” said Pisiak. “I guess one of the principles behind the cooperatives is giving back to the community. Why we’re doing this is we’re trying to just bring attention to what we do and that we’re a little bit different in that regard in that we like to give back to the community.”

Marie Nadeau, financial supervisor of the Davidson Branch of Affinity Credit Union, said the main idea behind the cleanup was “if we work together, we can do better for our communities.” She said in recognition of this members of Affinity got together and with a little push in the right direction by Communities in Bloom and the Town of Davidson they decided to get to work sprucing up the various gardens and parks.

“When we talked to Communities in Bloom, they said they have a girl hired for the job to water and weed, but there is so many areas that she can’t really dig in and do the nitty-gritty,” said Nadeau. “They gave us a few spots that they thought would be a good place to go and then the town said maybe clean up the park.

“They thought that would be a good idea and we were all for it. It’s the weeding and stuff, so that’s what we decided to do.”

Donna Russell, marketing coordinator at the Credit Union, who took part in cleaning up the flower gardens at Centennial Legacy Trail, said she was happy to complete some “community service” in celebration of the International Year of the Co-op. She said there are cooperatives all over the world and doing things like this brings attention to the gratitude co-ops have for the people who support them.