Pearl River County residents celebrated Earth Day over the weekend by cleaning their communities through two organized events.
Poplarville residents held the third annual Keep Poplarville Beautiful litter pickup and Trash Bash at City Park Saturday morning.
Individuals and groups, including 4-H, Poplarville High School, Oak Hill Baptist Church, Pearl River Community College and several municipal election candidates, reserved a section of the city’s streets to pickup litter.
The response was more than expected, event organizer Laurie Jaufre said.
After cleaning their area, participants gathered at City Park to celebrate their accomplishments with live music, food and door prizes, Jaufre said.
“It brought this year to a whole new level,” she said.
New to the team this year was Pearl River Community College, Jaufre said.
“The college has been trying and wanting to be on board with community events and they proved it by showing their efforts on Saturday,” she said.
Although Saturday’s event was a huge success, Jaufre said keeping Poplarville beautiful is not meant to be a one-day event once a year; it’s meant to bring awareness to the issue and ask citizens to maintain their communities every day.
Some of the event’s biggest donors, in addition to Jaufre, included the Pearl River County Board of Realtors, Greer’s Grocery, Coca-Cola and the Poplarville Women’s Club.
Local music acts Cross Ties and Hyperfhlyy showed their support as well, Jaufre said.
All in all, the participants collected three trailers full of waste from city streets.
“Of course we want the event to become more popular, but at the same time would like to see the trash diminish,” Jaufre said. “Poplarville is a beautiful community, but this is an issue that we need to address.”
Meanwhile, the Pearl River County Board of Supervisors sponsored its first county cleanup event on Saturday.
District I Supervisor Donald Hart led the campaign to clean the county’s most littered area in an effort to spread awareness.
For the first year, Hart said the event was relatively successful, filling three trailers of waste to take to the landfill.
Hart said he hopes the county continues to support the event on a yearly basis.