Plum to host 8th annual borough cleanup day

Around 250 Plum residents will scour the borough’s roadways April 19 for the eighth annual borough cleanup day. 

That is the highest number of volunteers the borough has seen for the event, according to Plum Manager David Soboslay.

Volunteers will search mainly “high-traffic areas,” including state roads, for around an hour as Earth Day, April 22, approaches, Soboslay said.

Participants come from a variety of sources, such as homeowners associations, scout troops, church groups and sports teams, he said.

“Over the years, once a group starts with us, they seem to stay with us,” Soboslay said. “So, we have a lot of repeat groups that come back.”

One of those groups is the Plum High School football team, which has come out in droves to help clean up for several years, said head coach Matt Morgan.

Normally, he said, his team covers the length of Davidson Road, splitting up on either end and gathering trash as they meet in the middle.

He said he expects around 50 football players to show up to help this year.

“It’s a way for our guys to give back to the community, take pride in the their community and clean it up,” Morgan said.

Soboslay said he expects this year’s cleanup to look similar to previous ones, even if the expected attendance is greater. In previous years, the manager said, residents had gathered more than 200 bags of trash from the borough’s streets.

“I hope it instills pride in the community,” he said. “To see all the bags, to see the hard work that went into cleaning up these roadways, it feels very good.”

Registered volunteers should meet at the Plum Borough Municipal Building between 8 and 8:30 a.m. The actual cleanup will be from 8:30 to 10 a.m.