In just under a year, Gasparilla Clean Team has hosted three cleanups across Tampa neighborhoods including Davis Islands, Seminole Heights (pictured) and Tampa Heights. Credit: c/o Gasparilla Clean Team
For most Tampa Bay residents, Gasparilla festivities start with drinks, beads and other items that often end up as trash. For some, like Wesley Roderick, a good party starts with trash.
The Gasparilla Clean Team founder leads roughly 200 volunteers on March 1 in the team’s biggest cleanup yet, fanning out across North Hyde Park with garbage bags in hand, tidying streets and sidewalks near Willa’s Provisions.
Sponsored by Pineapple Insurance with support from Leonard Contractors, Supernatural Food & Wine and Elevated Embers, the event reflects what Roderick described as a growing vision for how future cleanups will look.
“We want to be the festival at the end of all the Gasparilla festivals,” said Roderick. “After everybody’s done the partying, we’ll be the one that comes in and just cleans up.”
Gasparilla Clean Team began last year as a loose, quarterly effort among friends and local business owners, who wanted to make neighborhood cleanups feel less like an obligation and more like a social gathering.
Roderick—the owner of Tampa sandwich shop Supernatural Food & Wine, and holder of a CL byline—launched the project alongside his close friends, including Nate Hammond, owner of mobile sauna company Elevated Embers. The idea took shape during an early-morning workout on Davis Islands Beach, when the amount of trash around them became impossible to ignore.
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“I just looked around and I was like, this is super shitty,” Roderick said. “There’s just garbage everywhere.”
Rather than organizing a traditional cleanup, they decided to rework the model. Volunteers would still pick up trash—but they’d also be rewarded with food, workouts, cold plunges, music and time to hang out afterward.
“I think we can do better than a T-shirt and a pat on the back,” Roderick said. “When people come out, it’s like, yeah, we’re gonna do this, and we’re gonna have a fun time. We’re gonna actually enjoy ourselves.”
That approach has helped the group gain momentum quickly. In just under a year, Gasparilla Clean Team has hosted three cleanups across Tampa neighborhoods including Davis Islands, Seminole Heights and Tampa Heights. At its most recent event, about 20 to 25 volunteers picked up nearly 700 pounds of trash in roughly an hour. Earlier cleanups yielded between 400 and 500 pounds.
“It’s kind of wild, to be honest with you,” Roderick said. “You see some of it and you’re like, that’s amazing that that’s just under a bush somewhere.”
The March cleanup will be the group’s fourth overall and its largest to date, with Willa’s Provisions—near the corner of N Rome Avenue and W Fig Street—serving as a home base before volunteers spread out through the surrounding area.
Participation is capped, and volunteers sign up through the Gasparilla Clean Team’s Instagram, where they’re labeled as “VIPs”—Volunteer Impact Partners. Once someone attends an event, they’re given priority access to future cleanups.
“It’s a party,” Roderick said. “It’s not just, ‘Come clean up.’ It’s, ‘Come party—clean up beforehand.’”
While Roderick is often the most visible organizer, he consistently frames the project as a shared effort. “If I’m doing meaningful things, I want to be doing them with people I love and admire,” Roderick said
Pineapple Insurance founder Greg Tomlin supports supplies, logistics and overall production. Leonard Contractors helps cover major infrastructure needs like dumpsters, while Supernatural Food & Wine and Elevated Embers, along with other local businesses like Gaze Hot Yoga and Spaddy’s Coffee, contribute food and fun.
“They’ve been critical,” Roderick said of Pineapple Insurance. “Without them, we would’ve figured it out, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as sexy. And it would’ve all come out of pocket.”
While Wesley Roderick is often the most visible Gasparilla Clean Team organizer, he consistently frames the project as a shared effort. Credit: c/o Gasparilla Clean Team
Roderick, who has built a strong following through his restaurant’s run club and community events, sees the cleanups as an extension of the same people-first philosophy.
“There’s a little less of a boundary between who is firmly a customer and who is my friend,” he said.“I definitely enjoy life much more when I approach it that way.”
Looking ahead, the Clean Team plans to continue hosting one major cleanup each year, with the possibility of smaller events throughout the year. Long-term ideas include river cleanups and even incorporating live music—visions that Roderick said sound ambitious but align with the group’s goals.
For now, the focus is March 1: one neighborhood, a few hundred volunteers, and a few hundred pounds of trash removed from Tampa streets, all powered by the idea that community work doesn’t have to feel like work at all.
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This article appears in Jan. 15 – 21, 2026.
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