PROCTORVILLE — Keeping their roadways clean is the major goal of two groups in the eastern end of Lawrence County.

And they’re both out showing their pride in their community in a visible way.

On Saturday members of New Hope United Methodist Church spent the day cleaning a two-mile section of County Road 403 that runs by their church, across from Hall Funeral Home.

They have joined the Lawrence-Scioto Solid Waste Management District’s “Sponsor a Site” program.

“This is one of our programs to encourage people to take pride in their community,” Dan Palmer, LSSWMD director, said.

In this program groups sponsor a section of county roadway and agree to pick up trash and litter on a bimonthly basis. It was started in late 2006 and right now has 18 sponsors in Lawrence County and 10 in neighboring Scioto County.

A sign is erected beside the roadway selected by the sponsor with the group’s name and the district provides each organization with T-shirts for all the workers, litter bags and gloves.

“They call us after they are finished and we will send our litter crew up to pick up the bags,” Palmer said.

Another group that was out last week cleaning up were students from the Chesapeake Middle School, who spent about two hours Wednesday cleaning up County Road 1 by their school.

Taunya Wilson is a member of New Hope United Methodist as well as the Proctorville-Chesapeake TLC beautification organization. She sees the sponsor program as a way to restore pride in the area.

“It is discouraging others from littering and bringing awareness to the group that adopted (the roadway) that they take the time to clean along with road, they care about the land and the community they live in,” Wilson said. “Littering invites more litter. If someone is going down the road and it is a littered area, they don’t think anything about littering. If we can get the state and county officials to keep the roadways mowed and we can get groups to adopt highways, we can make a difference in this county.”