A team from Leadership Lafayette 2018 plans to clean up the community, and they need some helping hands.

The Oxford Community Cleanup Challenge is being issued by the Leadership Lafayette team of Delia Childers, Scott Iverson, Jeff Johnson, Katie Mink, Michelle Robinson, Casey Rogers and Brian Whisenant, with the goal of cleaning up trash along littered roadways on a designated day this spring.

May 19 is the designated cleanup day for “Don’t be trashy, keep Oxford classy!” and organizations, including youth groups, are being encouraged to sign up for the activity that will include cash rewards for the most trash collected. Trash collection will occur from 8 a.m. to noon, starting and ending at the Bailey Branch Park (across from FNC) in Oxford. A hot dog lunch will be provided and winners will be announced and rewarded at that time.

To sign up or get more information, email Robinson at mrobinson@oxfordms.net.

Leadership Lafayette is a program of the Oxford-Lafayette County Chamber of Commerce designed for emerging community leaders. Members are organized into teams, and they design a project that makes that benefits the community, ideally become sustainable.

Robinson is the city of Oxford recycling coordinator, so she often hears about roadways that need cleaning up.

“We are known as a beautiful community,” Robinson said. “But a lot of phone calls come into the city from residents who say this road has too much trash, that road has too much trash. We’ve even heard from a group of realtors who say that recruiting new residents here can be positively impacted by clean roadways.

“It is important to keep Oxford classy,” she said.

Delia Childers, advertising director at the Oxford EAGLE, said the goal is to clean up the community while engaging its youth and residents in a fun challenge.

“This will be rewarding for all groups participating,” Childers said. “We’re looking for school groups, civic clubs, youth groups, and church groups. They can have fun working together as a team, and the groups that have the biggest impact will receive cash awards that they can use for their own projects.”

The Oxford Community Cleanup Challenge is seeking sponsors who want to clean up Oxford, as well as groups to sign up for the May 19 event. They are also looking for recommendations of what roadways need cleaning up, and those can be made at the group’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/oxfordcommunitycleanupchallenge.