Residents across Wareham took to the streets, alleys, parks, fields and everywhere in between this past weekend in an effort to clean up the town.

"It was all trash and now it's not because of us," said Maureen DeWitt, who was cleaning up in front of CVS on Main Street with her friends Debra Ruprecht and Richie Newbert.

The three residents were out in support of a town-wide effort organized by a group of citizens called Don't Trash Wareham. Nora Bicki, one of the group organizers, said more than 200 people signed up to help, and several businesses in the area donated trash bags, gloves, and water for the workers.

DeWitt, Ruprecht and Newbert started at the Wesley Methodist Church on Saturday morning and worked their way down Main Street picking up trash and cleaning up the walkways.

One woman sitting in traffic shouted from her car, "Thank you so much! Is today clean up Wareham day? I'm going to bring a trash bag to the beach."

Another organizer, Melissa Dyer, had set up a simultaneous cleanup initiative through the Gleason Family YMCA. Dyer said she started with a group at Town Hall and moved down Route 6 onto Main Street.

"Everybody's out in full force," she said, while picking up trash along Merchants Way.

A number of different school groups, from middle school students, members of the High School Code Club and members of the JROTC all pitched in to clean up the middle school and high school grounds and fields.

The scene was the same in Onset, as groups of people cleaned up sections of Minot Avenue and Onset Avenue on Saturday while members of the Onset Bay Association cleaned up the bandshell and other sections of Onset Village.

Bicki said that the cleanup effort is just the first step in keeping Wareham litter-free and that education and trash prevention programs are likely to come in the future.

“It’s about cleaning up the town, and then preventing [more] litter,” she said.

Do you have photos of your neighborhood cleanup you would like to share? Send them to Wareham Week Editor Bill Whelan at bill@warehamweek.com.