‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’: Volunteers clean up Orange Mound streets

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Members of an Orange Mound non-profit say they’re taking back their community one trash bag at a time.

If you drive down a portion of Deadrick Avenue in the Orange Mound community, you might notice the road looks a little cleaner.

That’s due to the hard work put in by volunteers from Memphis City Beautiful and the Orange Mound Blight Patrol on Saturday morning.

“This is my community that I love. I can’t wait on no pastor. I can’t wait on the mayor,” said Warren Swift, the Captain of the Orange Mound Blight Patrol. “You got to get out here and do it yourself.”

Long-time residents, Warren Swift and Esther Jones with Orange Mound Blight Patrol said each month they go out to keep the community they love dearly clean.

This time they had a little extra help from the City of Memphis.

“What they say? Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” Jones said. “I truly believe that.”

Jones, who is also a member of Guns Down in Orange Mound, told WREG that the goal is to show her neighbors what the future could look like a future free of violence and blight.

“They feel like this is the ghetto. I have to tell them all the time this is not a hood and this is not a ghetto. This is a community,” Jones said. “We don’t live in the hood. We live in a community – historical where Black people owned their homes. All of these homes were owned by Black people.”

And Orange Mound Blight Patrol’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.

“It makes me very proud to see them revitalizing the community,” Orange Mound resident Shay Vann said.

To learn more about how you can volunteer, click here .

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