Craig Daily Press

Craig — Although there are fewer advanced calls from groups participating in Cleanup Craig Week from Saturday to May 18 than for last year’s effort, Rose Counts doesn’t think the community should be written off yet.

“We don’t know if there’ll be fewer people this year,” she said at the Craig Beautification Committee meeting Thursday. “Our two volunteers made over 100 phone calls. They really did try to get the word out there.”

And groups don’t need to RSVP to help clean up Craig, anyway, committee member Rhonda Willingham said, though the Craig Association of Realtors, Craig Fire/Rescue and some 4-H groups already have signed up for specific projects.

Cleanup Craig Week, a citywide initiative to take the spring cleaning tradition to the area, is organized more loosely than before.

Opposed to last year, when groups were assigned to clean a particular part of the city, this year people just need to pick up free trash bags, gloves and orange safety vests and start cleaning wherever they see trash.

“They can come (to the Chamber) anytime during the week and get bags and materials and clean anywhere they want to,” Willingham said.

Regardless, this year’s Cleanup Craig Week has a lot to live up to from its inaugural year in 2007, when Ride the Rockies likely spurred more interest, Counts said.

But, she added, the town is getting better about wanting to be clean, attractive and inviting.

“We did a lot last year,” Counts said, referring to how the beautification campaign has helped prompt people to take stock of their yard or their business. “We’ve gotten a lot of compliments about the hanging basket project downtown. It really comes down to awareness. If one block looks really good, the other block next to it takes notice.”

Which hopefully means people will — like a wave of bustling activity — encourage others to turn out for next week’s efforts, Committee member Sally Smith said.

Another change from last year, the Beautification Committee will not be manning free trash dumpsters. There aren’t enough people, and it would be too costly this year, members said.

However, the city of Craig will still take tires and home appliances for free May 17.

Members also wanted to highlight Moffat County’s landfill vouchers, available to any county resident with no overdue taxes at the county Treasurer’s Office. A voucher is good for one day of free dumping at the county landfill.

Despite the large-scale possibilities of Cleanup Craig Week, the Committee’s plan to expand the lamppost project to other blocks on Yampa Avenue and the landscaping project at Finley Lane and Victory Way, Committee members lamented how much more they could do with more community support.

From now on, members said they expect to concentrate on one or two big projects instead of splitting their effort between more.

For more information on Cleanup Week or how to help the Committee, call the Chamber at 823-5689.

“We’re a pretty small Com­mittee with some pretty big projects,” Counts said.