City leaders in Columbus and a group of volunteers are cleaning up litter around town.

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) — Dozens participated in the first-ever citywide clean up this morning.

Bottles, food containers, and trash littering the streets of Columbus. So Saturday morning a group of city leaders and volunteers grabbed their trash pickers, gloves, and trash bags to do something about it.

It started as a project for just one ward in the city, but the Mayor and City Councilman Stephen Jones saw it as an opportunity to clean up all 6 wards with the help of organizer Sasha James.

“Rather than just doing just clean up in one ward, let’s clean up all the wards at one time all in one day,” said Columbus Mayor Robert Smith.

Jones said the litter problem hurts the city’s image, especially in the eyes of visitors to Columbus.

“Some of the first things that people see when they come in your town is how much trash is on the road or how clean your city is, so if we can help out we definitely want to do it,” said Jones. “We have got all types of groups out her helping from the rotary to realtors from supervisors, we had the W president out here, so we had a lot of people out here
volunteering.”

Jones is proud of the progress made Saturday but said it’s only the beginning.

“You know we made a great impact, but I think it’s just a drop in the bucket, of course, you know what you can only do on one day, so we still encourage people to pick up in their area and not to liter at all,” said Jones.

“I think it makes a great impact in the community, us coming together as one,” said Smith. “As far as keeping everyone unified and keep the city of Columbus clean and keep the city of Columbus beautiful, it shows hometown pride.”

Just one step closer to keeping Columbus beautiful.

Mayor Smith and Councilman Jones tell us they are going to continue the clean-up once a month.