With the annual Foothills Festival set to kick-off late next week, its time to once again “spruce up” the downtown area, where the majority of Foothills Festival events will be taking place next week.

To get the city more appealing to out-of-town visitors and locals alike, the City of Albany is sponsoring its second annual Downtown Cleanup Day this coming Saturday, October 12.

Councilwoman Tonya Thrasher, the coordinator of the event, came up with the idea a year ago to help make the city cleaner and neater in time for the festival.

The cleanup will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday and anyone who would like to volunteer to help spruce up the downtown area should meet at city hall at that time.

The city is requesting that local businesses clean up around their own buildings across the city. The major cleanup effort by the volunteers, including some city council members, will be focused in the downtown area. The cleanup is expected to take about two to three hours.

Thrasher also noted that a group of high school students from the YEN organization (Youth Empowerment Network) would be taking part in the cleanup this year as well.

Also for the second year in a row, orange ribbons will be put up around the downtown area to honor and remember Aleigha Duvall, the little girl who lost her life in an accident a few years ago while trick-or-treating.

Anyone wishing to get and place a ribbon in her memory around their place of business or home should contact Thrasher or call Albany City Hall at 387-6011.

The city will also provide coffee and donuts to volunteers on the morning of the cleanup.

Albany City Council, at its regular meeting last week, made plans for the cleanup as well as announcing that for the second year in a row, businesses and individuals will be invited to set up “trick-or-treat” areas in downtown Albany, on the south side of the courthouse, from 5-8 p.m. Halloween night.

The first such event last year, which was catered to have a central location to a lot of trick-or-treaters to go without having to visit so many places, was deemed very successful and had several trick-or-treat vendors as well as little ghosts and goblins, participating.

Anyone wishing to help on Saturday, or for more information about the Duvall ribbon memorial or trick-or-treat hours downtown should contact Albany City Hall or call Thrasher at 606-688-0194.