Middleburg, Virginia is a wonderful town, for many reasons. It is historic, often described as quaint, walkable and full of interesting, eclectic shops and great restaurants.

It is also a town which is called home to residents and businesses who care about the town enough to venture out a couple of times a year to help spruce up Middleburg. This spring, clean up day was also an opportunity for folks to get out after a year and more of COVID, safely walking the streets with orange buckets and trash bags, picking up discarded trash items and recyclables.

Yours truly was the weed killer guy, dressed like one of the ghostbusters with backpack sprayer filled to the brim with a white vinegar based organic weed killer.

Notably, the streets were in fact not particularly bad, garbage-wise, partly because people have not been out and about as much as usual but also because there are members of the public who do this themselves every now and then, not for payment, not for any kind of recognition, but because they love their town.

Despite the fact that the town adopted a cigarette butt recycling campaign a couple of years ago, including special butt receptacles attached to all town trash cans, the cleanup volunteers did fill a small bag with butts which will be sent to Terracycle for complete safe recycling.

The town's Salamander Resort & Spa contributed not only with several members of staff who kindly pitched in to help, but supplied a delicious breakfast of coffees and pastries. Other businesses like Northwest Federal Credit Union were well represented with wonderful staff members who pitch in every cleanup day.

The next cleanup is tentatively scheduled for early fall, and there are many regulars ready to step up again - thank you!