Armed with Garbage Bags Our Mission:
Restore: So Generations May Enjoy!
Armed with Garbage Bags Our Mission:
Restore: So Generations May Enjoy!
Our Mission
GoodTrails.org was started back in 2024 when the Olshansky family wanted to take their love of the outdoors,
the lessons and gifts it shares, and help preserve it for generations to come.
We regularly set up meetings and group hikes through local paths and trails,
and armed with garbage bags our mission:
To Remove as Much Trash as Possible.
The goal is to restore so that others may enjoy.
As the frequency of our family clean up hikes increased,
and others join in our efforts, we progressed and set up this webpage in 2025
to help increase awareness and invite others to join our mission.
Volunteering is Easy
You don’t even have to contact us, just show up at one of the listed events and we will provide everything you need: the route description, garbage bags, protective gloves, and the trash picking tool (commonly a claw). Typical cleanups are approximately 1 hour, but feel free to come for a shorter time or stay longer! Our events are “rain or shine” however, your safety is our concern and we only will cancel if the weather appears dangerous with things like lighting strikes possible. Please use self-awareness and it will be your responsibility to check the weather forecast before attending and don’t come if weather looks bad.
Our Next Cleanup Event:
Back to Back!
May 10 and May 17, 2026
Sunday Fundays at 10:00am
On the 10th we go South, on the 17th we go North
GREEN BAY TRAIL
Meet just east of the tracks at the trail entrance near the Takiff Center .
There is no set trail length, this is an open cleanup, spend as much time as you'd like.
Gloves, Garbage Bags and Pick up Claws will be provided.
About Good Trails
Where we help
Typically our cleanups are in the parks and trails located on the North Shore of Chicago. We concentrate on areas like the Skokie Lagoons, the Greenbay Trail, Mary Mix McDonald and Turnbull Woods (surrounding the Chicago Botanic gardens) and other local parks and playgrounds. We are always up for suggestions, if you know of a spot that needs some loving care and clean up please contact us and we'd be happy help set up an event or post it here on this website.
Who we are:
We are the the Olshansky Family, and we hope you will join us! David Olshansky has been an avid outdoor adventurist for decades, summiting peaks and volcanos in Ecuador, climbing peaks in the Western United States like Colorado and California, and spending time canoeing through the Boundary waters at the Canadian border. Before they were married David shared his passion with the outdoors and took his wife, Amy, on a two week hike traversing the Joshua Tree Desert. Now, with young adult children, Maxwell and Jackson, the adventures continue. As a family they regularly go on camping and hiking trips, including summiting Mt. Fuji in Japan, section hiking the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, summiting peaks in the Western States. In 2025 we completed the Tour du Mont Blanc hiking 105 miles (170km) for ten days trough Switzerland, Italy and France. The family is scheduled in 2026 for to hike Hardain's Wall Path hiking 9 days, from coast to coast, across England. The Olshanskys have adopted a well established proverb from the wilderness community that "the harder the climb, the better the view.” To them it conveys the idea that achieving something worthwhile, or experiencing the most rewarding results, requires overcoming challenges and difficult situations.
Let us know you are coming...
See you at the Lagoons!
April 12, 2026. We broke out our shorts on this exceptionally beautiful day to clean up all the schools, West, South and Central School all got a good cleanup and we got a good work out. Great weather and thanks for coming out.
March 29, 2026. There was still smoke in the air and the smell of the controlled burn, but that didn't stop us from collecting 4 bags of rubbish in the Mary Mix McDonald Woods.
February 15, 2026. The BIG snow melt! a lot of plastic and garbage emerged from the melted s
Thank you: Jackson and Max Olshansky
Contact Us
Better yet, sign up for an event and see us in person!
Skokie Lagoons clean up meeting place
467F+VV Winnetka, Illinois
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