SPEEDWAY, Ind. — On Monday, some groups spent part of their Memorial Day cleaning up trash left behind at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after the Indy 500.
"We normally use backpack blowers all the way down, blow to the center then pick everything up. So this year, it's definitely a lot more wet than we expected it to be," said David Young, with Solid Rock Baptist Church.
Young is helping lead the charge for Solid Rock Baptist Church, cleaning up the front straightaway grandstands at IMS for their 11th straight year.
"We've got to do all of tower terrace from the beginning over here, all the way down the very end," Young said.
The church was among dozens of local nonprofits and churches that signed up to clean the track to help with fundraising for their organizations. Young said the volunteer work helps the church get paid to support the youth ministry.
"For a free block party every year. So this sponsors that, and it also sponsors our teens to be able to go to summer camp and winter camp, so it's a great time for them to learn how to work and help the speedway out," Young said.
This year, the cleanup is expected to take double the amount of time as previous years, due to less workers.
"There's an age range we can't go under anymore, so that kind of stinks just because we don't have our lower group for our teen group, so now we've got a lot of adults, which is helpful, but just a shorter supply of people," Young said.
IMS said local nonprofits, as well as churches, can apply each year to come out and clean the grandstands. To apply, click here.