Volunteers can celebrate Earth Day this year by cleaning some heavily littered Forsyth County roads.

On Saturday, Keep Forsyth County Beautiful, the local affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, will host the Great FoCo Cleanup to celebrate Earth Day. Volunteers will meet at the Cumming Fairgrounds for a rally at 9 a.m. before cleaning litter along Forsyth County roads.

“Keep America Beautiful, what they do is ask all the affiliates to focus in the months of March, April, May to focus on litter cleanup efforts,” said Tammy Wright, environmental programs manager with Forsyth County. “This is our big event we are doing in Forsyth County.”

In most years, Keep Forsyth County Beautiful holds a litter pickup in March, but this year organizers wanted to have an event on Earth Day, which falls on April 22 each year.

Wright said volunteers will be tackling some of the most heavily littered roads in the county before returning for a meal provided by Advance

Disposal, which operates the Eagle Point Landfill in northeast Forsyth.

“We’re going to send people out to various roads all over the country, mostly roads that we have gotten pretty consistent litter complaints in the last year,” she said. “Everybody will go out and spend an hour and a half, two hours cleaning and come back and have some food.”

As of Wednesday, more than 300 volunteers had signed up for the cleanup, and Wright said she is expecting more.

“We have a lot of the same volunteers that come back year after year because we do this event every year,” Wright said. “We’ve got several schools bringing out a crowd.”

Wright said over the years the T-shirts given to volunteers that have new designs each year have become collectors’ items to those who attend consistently and that strange items have been found on the roadside.

“We always have a little fun thing when everyone’s back eating lunch of going around and asking who found the most unusual thing,” she said. “We’ve had somebody find dentures. Not in the Great American Cleanup, but in other cleanups, we’ve had people find large amounts of cash, so it’s a fun event.”

Those interested in volunteering should call (770) 205-4573 and tell organizers how many people are planning on participating. The Cumming Fairgrounds is located at 235 Castleberry Road.