{"id":300346,"date":"2026-10-05T20:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/300346\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T20:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:52:11","slug":"philadelphia-volunteers-pick-up-trash-in-intercity-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/300346\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia volunteers pick up trash in intercity contest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Clean-Off was created by Katherine Tellock, executive director of Cleanup Club Chicago. She had the idea for an intercity contest after hosting cleanup competitions between neighborhoods in Chicago. She saw the enthusiasm from people competing against their own city and thought it would make sense to compete against a different city, too. So she reached out to Block By Block, and the Clean-Off was born.\n<\/p>\n<p>Tellock said the competition is a fun way to bring people together during a time when they may feel lonely or isolated. She said she hopes it helps people feel like they can be a part of something positive in their community.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s easy to feel like you don\u2019t really have any power to do anything, but this is definitely one place where you do have power,\u201d Tellock said.\n<\/p>\n<p>Last October, almost 1,000 people volunteered and picked up 1,850 bags of trash in Philadelphia and Chicago combined. That\u2019s about 7 tons of trash \u2013 enough to fill 12 dump trucks and equivalent to <a href=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/b8ae2a_c498416cb010483fbfef53ca58704783~mv2.png\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the weight of 14 horses<\/a>. Organizers hope the addition of Los Angeles will bring more participants and more competition.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompetitions between other cities are friendly and fun, but sometimes they can get a little heated. We\u2019re planning to poke at Los Angeles and Philly,\u201d Tellock said. \u201cLast year, we made fun of Philly\u2019s cheesesteaks.\u201d\n  <\/p>\n<p>Block said she\u2019s excited for the competition but also wants the Clean-Off to draw attention to bigger trash-related issues, particularly Philadelphia\u2019s persistent illegal dumping problem. She said she hopes people will be more invested in keeping their neighborhood clean when they can help make it more beautiful.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen people clean a neighborhood, they feel connected to it,\u201d Block said. \u201cThey spend their time and their energy cleaning the space, and they feel protective because it\u2019s part of their community and something that they did.\u201d<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-755190 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/philly-trash-cleanup-100526-01.jpg\" alt=\"Trash bagged and collected by volunteers\" width=\"1179\" height=\"609\"  \/>Trash bagged and collected by volunteers. (Courtesy of Block by Block)\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Clean-Off was created by Katherine Tellock, executive director of Cleanup Club Chicago. She had the idea for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-300346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}