RUMFORD — On a frosty morning Saturday, some 35 volunteers armed with garbage bags took to the streets of Rumford and Mexico to make their community a cleaner and better place.

Many of the volunteers were National Honor Society and Peer Helpers from Mountain Valley High School. Combined with parents and younger children, the group filled a 6×12-foot trailer parked outside the Hotel Rumford.

The amount of trash was “extremely shocking,” said student Ryley Flynn, who was with students Hannah Koch, Alex Ridley and Kelly Trenoweth involved in the cleanup of the Rumford Avenue/Falmouth Street corner and banking as well as the banking of the nearby mill parking lot.

A chair, Polar Pop cups, various other trash and, ironically, a garbage bin were some of the items gathered on the sidewalk.

“It’s ridiculous. Kind of sad, too,” said Flynn, who added he was glad he was part of the cleanup effort.

A short distance away, Serena Flagg and her 5-year-old son, Walker, and Sarah Bolduc, with her 4-year-old granddaughter, Leise Knapp, collected garbage from the Circle K in Mexico up Lincoln Avenue as far as the Department of Motor Vehicles.

They said they picked up a lot of cigarette butts and empty cups, mostly Polar Pop cups in an area volunteers termed “Polar Pop Central” because of all of the cup debris.

The event was organized by high school teacher Kristen Provencher, who runs many of these streets as she trains for a half-marathon.

“I was tired of seeing all the garbage and I posted on Facebook how bad it was,” Provencher said. “It blew up quickly.”

Provencher wanted to do something about it by having a cleanup, but that idea didn’t come to fruition until she met up with Kevin Kaulback and his wife, Leah, of the Hotel Rumford, who had also wanted to do a community cleanup.

The Hotel Rumford was the base of operations for Saturday’s event. At 9 a.m., Provencher and students, with maps of the streets of Rumford and Mexico, asked or assigned areas for volunteers to clean up, and distributed trash bags and gloves.

Garbage was collected in areas ranging from the Black Bridge loop in Mexico, the mill loop through Rumford and Mexico, the Wyman Hill Road area in Rumford, Isthmus Road in Rumford, Roxbury Road in Mexico and the River Road in Mexico. Those with young children were encouraged to pick on streets in residential areas that had less traffic.

At the end of the event, around noon, the Kaulbacks provided a free meal for the volunteers.

“I hope this event raises awareness and that those who saw all the people taking time out of the day to do this will remember to pick up after themselves,” Provencher said.

She said she would like to do another community cleanup, perhaps in the spring after the snow melts. She hopes fall and spring cleanups can be done annually.

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