Cilimburg, along with her mother and best friend Elise Baker, were among 400 volunteers who showed up to the popular local event that helped kick off Earth Week. They came ready to gather all kinds of trash between 10 a.m. and noon to help clean up the banks of the Clark Fork River in a seven-mile stretch between Milltown and Kelly Island.
“My mom found a bottle of brandy,” said the little girl.
“This is the best find today,” she said.
Seeing odd things makes the event fun for some, she said.
“It's like a massive treasure hunt,” said Knudsen, who has been with the organization for more than 15 years, and took over as director just last year.
One year, someone found a pocketwatch, she said. Another year, a bag of money.
“I think it was like $10 or $15,” said Knudsen. Clearly not the remnants of some bank heist, she said.
From boom boxes to stuffed animals, to personal journals, to report cards that list grades ranging from A+ to F, the gamut is inexhaustible, she said.
According to Knudsen, the collective spring cleanup has become a seasonal ritual for area residents, and is attracting more sponsors each year.
This year, major donors Envirocon and Washington Corp. donated funds to purchase materials necessary for the event.
REI, a five-year partner to the event, donated money to rent a glass recycling machine - dubbed “Glasszilla” - from Headwaters Recycling Cooperative, in Helena.
Ryan Newhouse, outreach specialist at REI, said that this is the first year the coalition's cleanup has included glass recycling, which turns glass into material suitable for roadbed paving, and products used in commercial and residential construction.
Missoula Federal Credit Union will be using some of the crushed glass for a new branch building, he said.
A man with a very personal connection was among those at Saturday's cleanup.
It's been 100 years since Paul Albert's great-grandfather, Sen. William Clark, built the dam in Milltown to power the neighboring Bonner lumber mill, and provide logs for Butte mines.
Just three weeks since the breach of the dam, now that the confluence of Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers flow freely, Albert came to Missoula to help clean up and celebrate the river's renewal.
A five-year Clark Fork Coalition member, Albert made his way from San Francisco to Missoula to be a part of the river cleanup after learning of his family's history in Montana.
Albert, a retired human rights attorney, said he has always been interested in the environment, but didn't know the full scope of his family's involvement here until five years ago.
As a result, he feels a kind of kinship with the Clark Fork, and with restoration efforts, that he said is hard to put into words.
Hearing that the Clark Fork was an abused and neglected river that was now being restored, just spoke to him, he said.
“There's a real parallel between the healing going on inside of me (about family issues), and a healing of the environment,” Albert said.
Seeing families band together to clean up garbage scattered along the banks of the river in front of Caras Park also spoke volumes, he said.
It's encouraging to see that this is a very engaged town,” said Albert.
By late Thursday, volunteers from families, to youth and church groups, to corporate entities such as Vann's, Target, and Albertson's-Eastgate, had signed on to help make the river a cleaner place.
Clark Fork Coalition development director Stacy Senterfeit said that the coalition tracks what is collected each year, with help from Allied Waste, Missoula Valley Recycling, and team leaders who keep abreast of the packs of pickers.
“Feeding this hungry pack at noon is a bit more of a production,” said Knudsen, on her way to replenish vegetarian, turkey and beef patties for the grill.
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