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By DONALD MOTTERN | Staff Writer

PELHAM – The trails, lots and fields of Pelham City Park were all host to a day of hard work from Publix employees who dedicated their time and efforts in a day of community outreach and volunteering on Thursday, April 25.

The event was organized as part of the company’s Publix Serves Week, which sees nearly 7,500 store associates volunteer across a large number of community service projects throughout their communities. The day is intended to focus not just on the local communities that the company serves, but also to their focus on environmental sustainability within those communities.

At Pelham City Park, at least 30 employees from the local Pelham store gathered for a day of work and set out to make a visible difference for the community.

“This is the third year we have worked with our local partners at Publix, and we thank Vincent Vacca, the manager and all of the volunteers for their efforts for caring about our community and keeping our Parks clean,” Parks & Racquet Club Superintendent Grant Sasser said.

This year’s workday had been planned for two months and saw workers in Publix shirts walk the park—picking up litter, refuse and dead tree limbs that were along the park’s trails.

Others in the group arrived equipped with bow saws, trimmers, loppers and electrical pruning saws and set forth in an effort to help clear brush and overgrowth within the park and along the trails.

As a result of the day’s work, approximately one ton of brush and overgrowth were successfully removed from the area and properly disposed of in addition to the five large garbage bags worth of other litter and debris that were collected from across the entire park.

This third annual work day is also intended to mark a continuation of an ongoing effort of community cooperation between Publix and Pelham and event organizers anticipate the event to occur again in the future.

“We want to send a huge thank you to our friends at Publix for volunteering to clean up some areas around the Pelham City Park,” read an official Facebook post by the city of Pelham. “We appreciate all of the hard work and effort.”