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Volunteers Take to the Streets to Sweep Up

By Dan Bader | August 10, 2012 9:37am

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS – La’Rell Footman wasn’t much bigger than the broom she pushed Thursday in the second Northern Manhattan Clean Streets Initiative but she had fun.

“We had to clean blocks and had to pick up garbage,” said Footman, 9, of Washington Heights.

Her dirtiest deed was picking up someone’s discarded footware.

“It was a sock that was under a car,” she said. “It was full of dirt.”

The event, which drew close to 100 volunteers, was sponsored by City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, State Sen. Adriano Espaillat and Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Romulo Guerrero of the New York Dominican Officers Organization had 10 other off-duty police officers pushing brooms between W. 175th and W.178th streets.

“Anything that’s going to better our community,” Guerrero said. “It’s our community, it’s my community. I grew up here.”