It’s Big Sweep Clean Up season in Durham, that time when people step up to remove other people’s litter left in all the wrong places.
Year after year, volunteers carry trash bags and gloves to parks, stream banks and other green spaces to haul away everything from crushed cigarette packages to truck tires.
After 30 years, the event has bloomed into a recruitment push too, an opportunity to show more people that a fast-growing city has plenty of green spaces that need tending.
9th Street reporter Cameron Oglesby digs into the program’s scale and importance.
At top: Volunteers at a Big Sweep organized with Durham Technical Community College students collect trash at Geer Cemetery. More than 1,500 African-American people were buried at the historic cemetery, located in Duke Park. Photograph courtesy of of Keep Durham Beautiful