Kat Wade, a Board member of Sustainable Sumter, weathered the rain during First Friday to give out information on the City wide clean up. “On Saturday, September 21, residents of Americas will have two opportunities to help clean up Americus. One is by volunteering at one of eight sites where people will go around and pick up trash.” Wade told how volunteers could sign up by scanning a QR code that would take them to their website, allowing them to choose a specific location. “After you volunteer, or while you volunteer, you’ll get a t-shirt, and afterwards there will be a pizza lunch.”

She also mentioned there were opportunities for people who couldn’t volunteer to help clean up the town. “If by chance, you’re unavailable to volunteer, but you have trash that you can’t get rid of otherwise, you are welcome to bring it to one of these locations, and that includes anything that can’t normally go in your trash can, like tires and paint and mattresses, all those kinds of things that are perhaps lying around on your property or nearby your property.”

Wade spoke of their desire to see the town come clean. “We really want to clean up Americus, and so the city of Americus is, you know, really taking this opportunity to get that done.”

Mark Simmons, president of Sustainable Sumter, also shared a reason to clean the town. “Jimmy Carter’s hundredth birthday party is the next weekend, and then there’s going to be Tour of Homes the following weekend.”

He gave details. “The garbage collection is completely free to the city, citizens of Americus, and probably Sumter County, and we’re doing it so that people won’t throw their tires in the ditches and in the creeks, and that the paint is properly prepared for the dump, and not just liquid paint in the hobos. So we’re just trying to be a bit, little bit more proactive about the garbage and what goes in the landfill.”

Wade detailed paint disposal. “We are going to keep the paint separate from the main dump site, and then we, as Sustainable Sumter, are going to take the action to prepare the paint so that it is suitably prepared for disposal.”