(The Daily Press) This fall, groups and indi­vidu­als are clean­ing up their favor­ite shared pub­lic spaces through Keep Pennsylvania Beau­ti­ful’s Pick Up Pennsylvania pro­gram, sup­port­ing the Ocean Con­servancy’s Inter­na­tional Coastal Cleanup, an ini­ti­at­ive to keep trash from reach­ing our water­ways and oceans.

Pick Up Pennsylvania is the state’s largest com­munity improve­ment pro­gram. This spring 51,000 volun­teers col­lec­ted 1.7 mil­lion pounds of trash and beautified 24,779 acres.

Behind those impress­ive statewide num­bers are local organ­iz­a­tions and volun­teers work­ing year after year to pro­tect the places they call home. One such organ­iz­a­tion is the Pennypack Eco­lo­gical Res­tor­a­tion Trust (PERT), loc­ated in Hunt­ing­don Val­ley, Mont­gomery County, Pennsylvania.

For the past 50 years, PERT volun­teers have rolled up their sleeves every year to help keep their sec­tion of Pennypack Creek and the sur­round­ing com­munity clean, healthy, and beau­ti­ful. What began as a local tra­di­tion has grown into a power­ful example of what can hap­pen when neigh­bors, organ­iz­a­tions, and muni­cip­al­it­ies work together for a com­mon cause.

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