Reinventing fall cleanup

BENTONVILLE — When spring rolls around, normally anyone and everyone is looking for an excuse to get outside. So organizing citywide spring cleanup efforts is hardly a challenge.

Fall, on the other hand, is quite another story.

It may be that people are worn down by the time fall sets in.

And it very well may bethat the masses cannot be pulled away from their televisions with college football taking hold. But the numbers don'tlie. This past spring, just shy of 250 volunteers took to the city's streets to pick up litter, compared to just 25 in fall 2008.

That's right: twenty-five.

So the city of Bentonville is shuffling the deck a bit this time around in an attempt to reinvent its fall cleanup effort.

Bentonville Clean and Green Day, planned for Oct. 2, will kick off, well, whenever anyone who wants to participate wants it to kick off.

Rather than having interested residents and business people gather at the Community Development Building before

dispersing throughout the

city, Danielle Shasteen,

the community programs coordinator, has

organized an event that encourages groups tocarry out cleanup and beautification efforts at or near their own places of employment and churches, and in their neighborhoods. Among the suggested projects Shasteen hopes residents and organizations will tend to are weed pulling, brush removal, tree and flower planting, gutter cleaning, trash pickup, leaf raking, tree trimmingand painting, to name a few.

"We're looking for broader community involvement, so we're going with a lot more of a beautification focus than just picking up trash in ditches," Shasteen said. "The focus has evolved to becomemuch more group friendly and where anything that needs to be done can be done. There are no limits. It's just a day to get out there - a number of groups all on the same day - and get some of those projects you've been meaning to get done done."

Shasteen said start times, the scope of projects and other details are completely up to the volunteer groups. But she is interested in knowing who will be doing what, as the city is charting volunteer work across the community.

"We want to be able to stop byand take photos where some of these projects are going on," Shasteen said. "Let us know. We want to give this event a boost."

The event is a communitywide effort and is planned to coincide with the Keep Arkansas Clean and Green campaign's "Great Arkansas Cleanup."