LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The most exciting two minutes in sports brings in over 100k fans to Churchill Downs, but they also leave behind an enormous mess. Teenagers are helping to get everything cleaned up.
“It really helps us get uniforms and other things that we need for the team so I like that we do it, it’s really cool,” Amelia Connally, an Atherton high school sophomore, said.
She’s on the high school soccer team and says this is their biggest fundraiser of the year. One parent who ventured out as well said it beats selling chocolate bars or cookie dough.
“We have a banquet at the end of the year, which is, we need a lot of money for,” Connally said.
This group of teens has been coming out here since Thurby, getting everything cleared in time for the day’s events.
“This is definitely worse, there was a lot more people here. On Thursday we did the stands over there which was interesting. It was definitely more than yesterday in the infield,” Connally said.
Students in the soccer coach’s world history class also helped with the cleanup. They were promised extra credit for their work.
There were mixed feelings about the manual labor, some students wished they could have been anywhere else.
“This is not fun. I don’t think I have ever been to Derby and now I don’t want to go,” one student said.
Over 1,000 tons of trash will have been hauled away from Churchill Downs.