Grizzlies players and staff lend a hand with Downtown Cleanup
Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, Hasheem Thabeet and DeMarre Carroll joined Grizzlies Academy students and Grizzlies employees to get down and dirty for the good of the city of Memphis on November 13, 2009.
The players, students and staff joined together for a volunteer cleanup project at two locations in downtown Memphis. The joint effort to make Memphis a cleaner place for its youth was part of President Barack Obama’s United We Serve campaign.
Mayo and Thabeet teamed up at one location, while Gay and Carroll led the effort at the other. Thabeet was so committed to helping the project that he showed up half an hour early to rake leaves, move dead tree limbs and encourage the staff and students. Mayo was key to getting the excess leaves, garbage and debris bags into the disposal truck,
obviously parlaying his shooting skills into landing the bags in the perfect location on the truck.
Gay and Carroll helped paint playground equipment, but Gay proved that the afternoon wouldn’t be all work and no play. The Grizzlies star small forward played catch with students after the cleanup project was done, showcasing an arm that would make his favorite football team, the Baltimore Ravens, proud.
The volunteer cleaning project was part of Clean Memphis’s First Annual Downtown Cleanup. Clean Memphis aims to systematically clean the city of Memphis by dividing it into 18 sections headed by “Clean Leaders” that have a vested interested in that particular section of the city.