BANGOR — A group of volunteers took to the streets of downtown Bangor Saturday morning for a bit of spring cleaning.

The annual cleanup is an effort to beautify the city and get the area ready for the flowers and plants that will soon be placed throughout the downtown area for the summer season.

“Public Works and our Downtown ambassadors do a really good job of keeping things clean,” said Betsy Lundy, executive director of the Downtown Bangor Partnership. “But there’s always little things hiding here and there that we like to get out of the way and make sure when we do our Big Dig Weekend for Adopt-A-Garden in two weeks that the gardens walk into a really nice, clean situation to plant their plants.”

The Adopt-A-Garden effort allows residents to take care of their own plot of plants in the city throughout the summer, and the Big Dig Weekend is where people come together to plant gardens in the city. 

Lundy said this is the 11th year that Downtown Bangor has held the cleanup, and that it helps residents to feel more connected to the city of Bangor.

“It helps people feel a sense of ownership of downtown,” said Lundy. “That’s one of the things that’s unique about a downtown is that it’s public space and literally everyone owns a little slice of this downtown and so when they come down here and do a little cleanup and do a little planting it helps them feel invested in it.”

Tasks included picking up trash, removing any graffiti, changing the dirt in flower boxes and removing several invasive shrubs. Volunteers said it's a great way to give back to the community.