With the first Ole Miss home game fast approaching next weekend, Leadership Lafayette is hosting a new event to make Lafayette County look as nice as possible for visitors coming for football.

Cleanup for Kickoff will be taking place on Saturday, Aug. 26 across the town from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.

“The concept for the event was created by a Leadership Lafayette group with the help of Keep Oxford Beautiful,” said Cobie Watkins, the group marketing and PR coordinator for the event. “Keep Oxford Beautiful has agreed to continue the event in the future with some help from other community members and organizations.”

Watkins added that this is a good opportunity for Lafayette citizens to show “the state, region, and nation, why we’re one of the best places to live.”

“With the population of Oxford swelling to as many as 85,000 people on Ole Miss home football weekends, there is no better time to showcase who we are,” she said.

The day will begin at the Old Armory Pavilion at 8 a.m. where volunteers will be divided into three groups. Tasks include cleaning up stretches of the highways and sprucing up the “Welcome to Lafayette County” signs that cars see coming from Batesville and Pontotoc. The first 75 volunteers will receive a free t-shirt.

“Our mission is two-fold,” Watkins explained. “We want and encourage citizens to participate in the three cleanup sites we have and to clean up their own properties and places of business on their own.”

Leadership Lafayette is part of the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Foundation.

More information can be found at https://www.facebook.com/cleanupforkickoff/ or on the Eventbrite page at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oxford-cleanup-for-kick-off-tickets-36079307179.