DURHAM, N.C. -- Long Meadow Park is clean again after volunteers spent their Sunday picking up trash.

• Volunteers from World Mission Society Church of God cleaned the park and Ellerby Creek
• Keep Durham Beautiful estimates they picked up roughly 500 pounds of trash
• The church says they hope neighbors follow their lead and keep parks in Durham clean

Twenty-five volunteers from World Mission Society Church of God cleaned the park and Ellerby Creek, which runs through it. The volunteers filled 26 bags of trash and recycling in only an hour and a half of service.

"There was more trash in the water than I expected," said volunteer Phillip Berry. "It was like a graveyard for aluminum cans and bottles."

Keep Durham Beautiful, a non-profit conservation group that helped organize the volunteer effort, estimates they picked up roughly 500 pounds of trash.

"I'm absolutely not surprised that these hardworking people were able to collect this much trash," said Keep Durham Beautiful executive director Tania Dautlick. "However,  I am dismayed there was this much trash in the environment to begin with."

The church says they hope neighbors follow their lead and keep parks in Durham clean.

"Once we actually got into the creek and you saw just exactly how much there was, it really makes you think about other areas," said volunteer Amanda Hall. "They might look beautiful from far away, but once you take a closer look, it probably needs a little bit of TLC."