Saturday was spring cleaning day in the city

All over the city on Saturday, little volunteer armies used rakes, shovels, brooms and muscle to attack disrepair and litter.

As participants in the mayor's annual spring cleanup, they painted park benches and basketball courts; picked up trash; collected recyclables; planted trees, flowers and shrubs; and mowed grass.

There was no shortage of cleanup events in the Northeast on Saturday. At two in Frankford, cadres of volunteers worked on small parks east of Frankford Avenue and at the neighborhood's largest public green space, Overington Park, at Orthodox and Piling streets.

At Overington Park, some 36 volunteers planted grass and flowers while others picked up 147 bags of debris, painted over graffiti or mulched and fertilized flowers and shrubs, said Diane Kunze of Friends of Overington Park.

At Wilmot Park at Meadow and Mulberry streets, the basketball court was painted, and shrubs were planted. At nearby Hedge and Plum Recreation Center, more shrubs were planted, the grass was mowed and the grounds were cleaned up.

As volunteers worked, they raked and picked up the expected bottles, cans and cigarette butts. They occasionally found some items that were unforeseen: old tools, lug nuts, discarded clothing and bicycle parts.

According to the city, 12,572 volunteers worked at 252 sites and cleaned 1,104 blocks, 28 parks and 17 recreation centers. They picked up 1,240,360 pounds of trash and 149,860 pounds of recyclables. Volunteers removed 7,280 tires.

Two hundred fifty-five more people signed up for the city's Recycling Rewards program, and 3,750 recycling bins were distributed.

To help the volunteers, 103 rubbish and recycling crews worked on Saturday. Besides using their collection trucks, they used eight tire trucks, five front-end loaders and three trailers.

Distributed for volunteers' use were 44,204 trash and recycling bags, 3,884 brooms, 14,907 gloves, 1,226 shovels, 1,952 rakes, 1,011 gallons of paint, 1,422 paint brushes and 140 graffiti removal kits.

One volunteer working in a small park at 4700 Tackawanna St. said it was his guess that the amount of litter picked up Saturday was a lot less than the weight collected at last year's cleanup.

"Maybe people are learning," he observed.

Some of the volunteers working in Frankford on Saturday were not even from the city. Bill Miles, assistant principal of Hatboro-Horsham High School in Montgomery County, pitched in at Tackawanna Street along with about a dozen members of the school's honor society.

Miles, who grew up in Juniata Park and graduated from North Catholic High School, said the students were there on a purely voluntary basis and intend to work at other projects in the city.

Tracy O'Drain, managing director of the Frankford Community Development Corporation, said 30 people signed up for the city's Recycling Rewards program during the cleanup in Frankford and almost 150 recycling bins were distributed. She said she and Michelle Feldman, the CDC's commercial corridor manager,  gave out coffee and doughnuts courtesy of Dunkin' Donuts, pretzels courtesy of state Rep. Tony Payton Jr. (D-179th dist.), and 50 T-shirts and 75 reusable shopping bags compliments of the CDC.

O'Drain said the CDC still has about 300 recycling bins currently stored in the organization's headquarters at 4900 Griscom St. Those bins can be picked up from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday, but O'Drain said she often is out of the office, so anyone who wants a bin should call first at 215-743-6580.

It's one bin per household, O'Drain added, but block captains may make arrangements to get more.