With the Foothills Festival, which is coming up in a matter of weeks, being the single-most draw of a large crowd to downtown Albany and its outskirts from the courthouse square area, the City of Albany, in cooperation with other officials and businesses, are launching something new this year–the first annual “City of Albany Cleanup Day.”

The purpose of the day is to make the city of Albany, primarily the downtown area, look as nice as possible to not only thousands of out-of-town weekend guests for the Foothills Festival, but for the local citizens as well.

The original idea of a cleanup day was presented at a recent meeting of Albany City Council by councilwoman Tonya Thrasher, who put forth the idea as a way of making the city, especially the downtown area where most people gather, have a better look prior to the annual festival event.

Like any pilot project, the first year will be the toughest to get participation and get the event to continue for future years. However, Thrasher and other city officials are hopeful there will be enough business owners, city and county officials and volunteers to get the project off the ground, despite a somewhat late start.

Thrasher plans to talk to local business owners in the downtown area, especially around the square, and distribute flyers to let people know about the event and hopefully get some participation.

City officials are urging all business owners in the city limits to clean up around their business places, doing minor things such as washing windows, picking up debris, sweeping sidewalks, or even do some painting to enhance the areas around their stores.

“Since the Foothills is the biggest event (crowdwise) during the entire year in Albany, I think it would be a good idea to make the town look as nice and clean as possible to all the out-of-town visitors,” Thrasher said late last week.

The event has been scheduled for this coming Saturday, October 1 from 8 a.m. to 12 noon.

Thrasher is also proposing possibly planting some flowers or other ornamentals that could be donated for the event, and also ask for help from county officials to promote the idea.

She also may be seeking donations from area businesses for such items as trash bags, cleaning materials, etc. to offer free to business owners who participate to use in the clean-up effort.

“We’ve started small,” said Thrasher, but said she hoped the event would grow next year and in years to come and hopes to get an earlier start on the planning of the event next year.

Albany Mayor Nicky Smith and the rest of the city council is also urging local businesses and even residents to take part in some small way in the clean up day by sprucing up their surrounding areas and taking pride in the appearance of not only the city area, but their business places and homes as well.

Anyone wishing to donate any cleanup items, i.e. trash bags, window cleaner, gloves, and so forth to help in this weekend’s cleanup day, or for more general information on the project can contact Thrasher at 688-0194 or city hall at 387-6011.