Taking their lead from Major League Baseball, members of Keep Covington/Newton Beautiful are having their own Spring Training this year.

The group is hosting a few smaller litter pickups over the next three months in preparation for the Great American Cleanup, an annual county-wide cleanup effort that will take place March 29 this year.

The first Spring Training litter pickup will take start at 9 a.m., March 25 at the Covington Y Outdoor Center, 200 Stone Road, Oxford. Keep Covington/Newton Beautiful (KCNB) board Chairman Sara Vinson and Treasurer Ginny Butcher will give out trash bags, gloves and vests to attendees and lead the litter pickup along Ga. Highway 142 North until 11 a.m.

Volunteers only need to show up at the designated meeting places, they don’t need to register or call to sign up, KCNB Director Laurie Riley said. Volunteers should wear bright colors for roadside visibility, Riley said.

The second schedule Spring Training pickup will be from 10 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, Feb. 4 along Brown Bridge Road; it will be led by Kim Dylong. The third pickup will be from 4-6 p.m. March 4 on Alcovy Road and will be led by Tom Brown and Leslie Latham. Other events may be scheduled later; Riley said updates on the current events and new events will be posted on the organization’s Facebook page and at kcnb.biz.

"We are excited that our board members want to get a jump on cleaning up litter!" Riley said in a press release. "We are planning for our big Great American Cleanup in March, but we know that this time of the year is traditionally the worst for litter, and we want to go ahead and get some volunteers out to pick it up now."

She said litter is generally worse after the Christmas holidays, and with the weather being bad, prison crews haven’t been out as often picking up trash because of strict regulations.