Garbage, or blight, can be quite an eyesore if not taken care of, and with the weather warming up, it is the perfect time for communities to come together and take out the trash.

One small town in Northern Michigan is doing its part by helping out neighbors and enforcing rules to help keep Manton as clean and welcoming as can be.

The Mayor of Manton shared that one thing the city does is host a Dump Day.

"Like other towns, we do have a small problem with blight. How we deal with our blight is a little bit different. The first Saturday in May, we offer our citizens and man a free Dump Day if they can bring their garbage and their rubbish and their and their things down to City Hall or down to Wall Street, we haul it away free of charge to our citizens."

Manton City Commissioner Marcie Wilson adds that being there for your neighbor is just as important. If you notice they may be struggling, reach out.

"We're all family oriented. If you talk to your neighbors, if if they need help, reach out. If you see something that needs to be picked up or, you know, just stop and say, hey, can I help you out or is there something I can help you do? If we get our schools involved, like, you know, they've got football teams, baseball teams, basketball, get them involved in the community and see if they can do like a trash pickup day around town."

And resident Ken Martz states that getting the youth involved is a surefire way to make sure cities like Manton get clean, and stay clean.
"Often times we do not use our youth to be involved. And when they are involved, then they will start taking care of their property and other properties around. If you don't have them involved, then they feel that they're disconnected from their community and they just simply don't think about getting involved. Get them involved any way that we can encourage them to help."

The Mayor adds that Manton recently just acquired the ability to write tickets to those who have let blight get out of hand at their homes.

"Manton has acquired recently is an amendment to our ordinance that allows certain authorities in town, our fire chief and our treasurer, to write tickets in cases that run away. So you'll get a warning, a letter, and then you'll get a second letter to remind you if you didn't get the first. But then a ticket might come and that would that would encourage people to clean up before they get a fine."

At the end of the day, the Mayor, the commissioner, and the resident all agree, the best way to keep your community clean, whether in Manton or Detroit, is to be a kind neighbor and help those who can't do it themselves.