STERLING – A candy wrapper tossed here. A cigarette butt flicked there. Alone, they may not seem like much, but multiplied across blocks of sidewalks, curbs and alleys, a little litter here and there can speak volumes about a city’s pride — and it doesn’t have anything good to say.

That’s why a group of volunteers have banded together to make their own statement about a problem that can quietly reshape how a downtown feels, and what they’re saying is: Don’t mess with Sterling.

Team Up 2 Clean Up program is a volunteer effort that hits the streets to pick up and clean up in the city’s downtown. It’s an effort led by Sterling Main Street, a volunteer-driven nonprofit organization dedicated to revitalizing, promoting and preserving downtown Sterling.

On a single Saturday a month from March to October, this dedicated team takes their time to take out the trash from the city’s downtown. The team’s most recent cleanup was March 28.

For Main Street executive director Janna Groharing, one of the program’s most meaningful outcomes has been watching people begin to connect their everyday habits to the condition of their own downtown.

“Throwing a candy or gum wrapper out your window may seem like a little thing,” Groharing said, “but they are seeing how the ripple effect of that is a big deal, and why you shouldn’t do that.”

Main Street formerly hosted a single-day “Green and Clean” event around Earth Day in April for about a decade, an effort that included planting flowers and spreading mulch to help spruce up downtown. But in recent years, with fewer planting projects on the calendar, the initiative slipped to the back burner, Groharing said.

It wasn’t until 2023 that the idea returned, but this time in a more focused and flexible form.

“Once a month, my board kept asking what other projects could we do,” Groharing said. “Garbage pickup was one thing that really needed to be done. The litter just blows in. That’s the one thing that really makes an impact on how downtown looks.”

The name itself comes from that of a beautification trailer owned by the City of Sterling, loaned to volunteer groups for cleanup and improvement projects in parks and neighborhoods. When Main Street revived its own cleanup initiative, the name felt like a natural fit, Groharing said.

What began as a handful of Team Up 2 Clean Ups in its first year — including one day dedicated to repainting the white benches at the Grandon Civic Center — evolved into a rhythm of its own in 2024, when it became a monthly fixture on the calendar.

The increased frequency made a difference. Instead of a one-off event, it became part of the seasonal pulse of downtown. In turn, it also found a powerful partner in Sauk Valley Community College’s Impact Program, which allows eligible high-schoolers to earn tuition-free attendance by completing 100 hours of community service before graduation, as well as meeting other eligibility requirements.

One draw of the program is that anyone can do it. Picking up trash requires no special skill set, and it doesn’t demand a long-term commitment. It simply asks people to show up and care — and they have.

Main Street board member Anna Garcia leads the monthly effort, arriving around 9:30 a.m. to set up at Dale Park with garbage grabbers, brightly colored vests and trash bags. She typically cleans the park herself while assigning other volunteers to different sections of downtown. Participants return their filled bags to the park, where the trash is deposited in a nearby dumpster behind Main Street’s office.

“For the students in the Impact program, it gives them an opportunity to earn their Impact hours to attend Sauk tuition-free, and that’s when we wanted to start making this a monthly event,” Garcia said. “I knew these students needed their hours, so why not get them to come downtown and clean up the downtown to get those hours?”

Last year, close to 100 volunteers participated from across various ages and backgrounds. Families have signed up together. Local students from Key Club and National Honor Society have pitched in. The Sauk Valley Under 40 Group has planned participation along the riverfront in April. Some participants have even been walk-ins who learned about the opportunity and decided to stop by and learn more.

There is a sign-up form on Main Street’s website, which helps organizers estimate attendance, but it’s not required — all it takes is a willingness to help. In fact, Groharing makes it clear that the spirit of Team Up 2 Clean Up extends beyond any single event. Simply raising awareness of the problems of litter can make a difference. Maybe it’ll discourage people from littering, or encourage people to pick up trash when they see it.

“You don’t need to be part of our event to make a difference,” she said.

Aside from the benefits to the city, Garcia has also seen the event make a difference in people’s lives. She’s watched friendships form in real time, a benefit she said she didn’t expect when the program started.

“Once they started coming, they started making friendships,” Garcia said. “It’s so cool. It’s been so cool to see them exchange contact information and to come back the next month together when they didn’t know each other before, and students from so many different towns are participating.”

The cleanup has also become a networking space of sorts, and has even led to tangible opportunities: Garcia has served as a job reference for at least one volunteer who demonstrated reliability and work ethic through the program.

“Self care is a big thing,” Garcia said. “What’s better than going outside, being in the fresh air, cleaning up the town, and setting a good example? How can you beat that? It’s good for people. It’s not just for these students, but it’s good for everybody to get out there and make an impact that you can literally see. When you turn in that bag of trash, you literally and physically see the impact you just made. It feels good.”

And those aren’t the only benefits. Civic pride can even turn a profit.

Participants, especially those who may not regularly spend time downtown, have noticed businesses they overlooked before, and that can translate into a return visit for lunch or shopping later.

Then there are the small, unexpected moments that become part of a memorable story, such as a time when a group found a coin with Jesus Christ on it.

“It was a funny thing — they found Jesus,” Garcia said. “Two girls came back and told me, ‘Look what we found!’ It was a gold coin with the image of Jesus on one side and The Last Supper on the other side. I told them I had to take a picture of it because you literally found Jesus. That was really cool.”

Moments like that can spark conversations and connections that don’t always happen in a classroom or behind a screen.

“One of the boys that was there that day asked if he could have the coin, and they gave it to him,” Garcia said. “Then he asked if anyone would want to go to church with him on Sunday.”

It’s stories like that that keep Groharing and others coming back for more, and hoping they’ll find less — litter, that is.

“When I go downtown to eat, when I go downtown to shop, I don’t want to see trash,” Garcia said. “Removing the trash is the first step in beautifying the downtown.”

Groharing agrees that the aesthetic effect is immediate. Litter accumulates quickly, especially after winter. As snow melts, debris hidden for months become visible, and that’s when the volunteers become visible, helpers of all ages who come together for a common cause: Cleaning up.

“The kids are a little more aware of just how much litter is out there, and just how much people litter and how much of a lasting impact that does make,” Groharing said. “Hopefully we’re getting them to think twice before they think about throwing that candy wrapper out the window or something like that.”

The program’s growth has been steady, but both Groharing and Garcia see even more potential ahead. At its core, the program is about stewardship, and about a community’s collective responsibility for shared spaces.

“A clean downtown is a pride of ownership,” Groharing said. “Downtown belongs to everyone. We say that downtown is everyone’s back yard. When the snow melts, what do you do? You clean up the yard. Who does that for downtown? We all have an ownership stake in the downtown – it’s not just a building or a business, downtown belongs to everybody. We should have that pride of ownership and take care of it, and that includes picking up the garbage.”