Many people are familiar with heading to Downtown Muncie for arts events, concerts, dining, and shopping.  But now there’s one day a month dedicated to helping downtown become a cleaner place for all those activities.  As IPR’s Kwaku Dakwa reports, regular volunteers are needed to help downtown “tidy up.”

People in Muncie now have a way to help their community stay a little cleaner thanks to Ivy Tech Community College’s Alisa Wells and Jeff Scott.

“We thought let’s do a clean up. Let’s call it The Ivy Clean Team or something catchy like that, and get the students and the faculty and the staff involved, and let’s come together and do something that’s great for downtown Muncie.”

The name they settled on is Tidy Up Tuesday.  It’s being held on the first Tuesday of every month, before the First Thursday events. Muncie’s Downtown Development Partnership is helping with the event and Wells says they were eager to jump on board the project.

“They were excited about the opportunity. We were thinking we could get T-shirts and how this could spread, and before you knew it it just took off like wild fire.”

The event was held for the first time last month and had 30 volunteers. But Wells and Cheryl Crowder, the Director of Events for Downtown Development Partnership, are not surprised by the interest this event has received.

“I think so many times people want to help and they don’t know how to. So when you present an opportunity to them and ask them for a specific kind of help, it’s really easy for them to say yes.”

Volunteers are needed for two shifts during the daytime – one begins at 8:30 AM and another at 2:00 PM.

If you want to participate on any Tidy Up Tuesday, contact Alisa Wells at awells8@ivytech.edu or call 765-289-2291, extension 1455.  Interested volunteers can also simply show up to the event.