Photos: Keeping the Elmont community clean

The Locustwood Gotham Civic Association, members of the Elmont Memorial High School Key Club, the counseling department and students from the honor societies teamed up on May 13 to clean up the streets of Elmont.

Starting outside UBS Arena at 9 a.m., dozens of Elmont neighbors and Town of Hempstead elected officials such as Supervisor Don Clavin and Councilman Tom Muscarella took time out of their day to spruce up the area.

With the help of the Town of Hempstead’s newly formed Quality of Life Task Force, the volunteers picked up litter and debris left along Hempstead Turnpike. The motivation behind this task force is removing illegal ads, graffiti and litter, creating clean communities while preserving the suburban landscape in Hempstead.

Representatives of UBS Arena, the New York Racing Association, Bethpage Bank and several local businesses such as Champion Pizza, Salvatore’s and Gino’s supplied the volunteers with much-needed pizza and refreshments.

In helping keep the streets clean, the young volunteers learned a valuable lesson of their role in helping to maintain a good quality of life in Elmont.