Clean-up work rewarded at Freedom Park

Thursday, Oct. 8, 1998 | 11:20 a.m.

A capacity crowd of more than 3,000 people attended the second annual Community Clean-Up and Pride Day at Freedom Park on Saturday to celebrate clean-up projects across the city.

The event, sponsored by the Las Vegas Hispanic Counsel of Mexico, offered children and their parents the chance to see Circus Osorio and the Mexico Vivo dancers for free as a reward for pitching in to keep Las Vegas clean.

Tickets to the show at Freedom Park could not be bought, but could be earned. Earning a ticket meant being a part of a Sept. 26 clean-up of empty lots around the city, or by going to booths set up in Freedom Park Saturday to learn about such subjects as health, nutrition, fire safety, firearms safety and drugs.

About 450 people were awarded tickets from the clean-up, with the rest gaining entrance to Saturday's show by attending the sessions at the booths, said Rafael Vega, of Vega Enterprises, one of the event's sponsors.

Other sponsors included the East Las Vegas Community Outreach Corporation, McDonalds, Sprint, the United Way of Southern Nevada and the Latin Chamber of Commerce.

Saturday's event also included blood and cholesterol testing as well as information booths on AIDS prevention, blood, organ and bone marrow donations, tuberculosis and heart disease.