Guns Down Miltown hosts citywide trash pickup

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MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- It's a citywide effort to clean the streets of Milwaukee. Community members and volunteers gathered Friday, March 12, to pick up trash.

"No one wants to step up and do it, so we’re doing," Anthony Smalley said. He is a Milwaukee promoter. 

“We’re having a lot of trouble maintaining neighborhoods, our streets and our alleys," Kenny Dean said. Dean is a local entrepreneur. 

The recent snowmelt revealed all the trash hidden underneath.

“With it melting it uncovered a ton of debris, and now it’s just blowing in people’s yards.

Guns Down Miltown is the face of the project. The group partnered with other organizations and city entrepreneurs. Local businesses paid for supplies including gloves, pickers and buckets.

“You don’t have to worry about using your own supplies or even getting yourself dirty. The reality of it is the more people that come out, the faster the project goes," Dean said. 

“When one person is doing something positive, they’re going to do it too," Smalley said.

Guns Down Miltown's spokesperson Mar Scott says while we’re still in the middle of a pandemic, cleaning city streets is a perfect way to practice social distancing.

“Even though we’re out here doing this and we’re cleaning as a unit, we’re still social distancing, that’s why we put everybody in different neighborhoods," Scott said. 

Scott's group started at 18th and North Avenue and ended at Teutonia Avenue.

“With everybody going through the pandemic, it’s so much going on with the businesses around the area, so we want to make their property look good as well as everybody else's," Scott said.

Scott says he's hoping this project can become a weekly or monthly event.

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