Cleaning up

Decked out in orange vests, volunteers streamed through Kinston on Saturday, sprucing up wide sections of the community.

About 168 volunteers arrived at Neuseway Park at 8 a.m. and then spread out to clean up areas of downtown, Mitchelltown, the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard corridor and the park for Pride of Kinston's annual community clean-up day.

Pride, which has hosted the clean-up since 2006, normally focuses on downtown, but executive director Adrian King said he decided to bring neighboring communities into the mix this year.

"They're out neighbors and they're really important to the development of downtown," King said of Mitchelltown and MLK Boulevard.

The regular slate of volunteers, drawn from various local civic and youth organizations, was augmented by at least 120 members of Kinston's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregations.

The LDS, or Mormon, Church held a day of service throughout the Southeast on Saturday as congregants from Virginia Beach to Florida, and Tennessee, participated in local service projects.

Church leaders in Kinston's two wards, or congregations, offered to participate in Pride's clean-up efforts.

LDS congregants in Kinston's Ward 1 and 2, and the Woodington ward, took part in the Pride event, and also helped build a bridge replica at the Kinston-Lenoir County Visitors and Information Center, plus they refurbished facilities at South Lenoir High School and Pink Hill's recreation center.

"I think it went extremely well," Ward 2 Bishop Rick Anderson said.

Volunteers using chainsaws, along with a derrick digger line truck donated by E&R Inc. of Kinston and a "bush hog" donated by Cascade Landscaping, cut a swath of trees, vines and brush away from the river bank.

"I think we got a lot more done that we anticipated getting done," Anderson added. "It was just by coincidence that (our service day) happened on the same day."

Members of the Mitchelltown Preservation Society and East Kinston residents led by the Rev. Larry Lynch of the Rock Church of Christ and Thelma Waters of the White Rock United Presbyterian Church cleaned streets and yards in their respective neighborhoods, with assistance from Latter-day Saints volunteers.

David Anderson can be reached at (252) 559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.

Pride Clean-Up Day highlights:

-Volunteers were treated to lunch from King's Barbecue and music from Steve Hardy's Original Beach Party.

-Wheat Swamp landscaping donated two trees that were planted in the park in honor of Arbor Day, which also took place Saturday.