It is that time of year again, time for the City of Weyburn's annual Clean Up Campaign, which will run through the month of May with judging for residential and Chamber businesses to be held on Monday, May 28.

This year, the theme for the campaign will be: "People, Plants and Pride Growing Together." Area chairpersons will be going to the five residential areas to look for ways to improve the appearance of the community, and will hand out written notices in their area for clean-up.

The five zones are Zone 1, which covers South Hill; Zone 2, which covers the blocks surrounding the downtown; Zone 3, which covers the north side of Weyburn up to Highway 13 and 16th Street; Zone 4, which covers the blocks between Zone 2 and Zone 5; and Zone 5, which covers the areas east of 16th Street.

The Chamber of Commerce will also get involved in this campaign, as they look to local businesses to clean up, and they will be judged in conjunction with the residential campaign.

Another supporter is Weyburn Minor Ball, which will be doing their cleanup the week of Monday, May 21 to Saturday, May 26. This year there will be two prizes, a Nintendo DS, offered to both the top girl player and boy player who receive the most pledges for their work for cleanup-week.

Elementary schools will be involved as students from Grades 1-6 will participate in a poster contest. The students creating the winning posters will receive $30 for first place and $20 for second place. There are three categories for the schools: Grades 1 and 2, Grades 3 and 4, and Grades 5 and 6.

There was some discussion this year on how to get all levels of schools involved, from Kindergarten to Grade 12 students. One idea was to introduce a competition between the schools, and Ed Engele, engineering assistant to the City of Weyburn, plans to approach the school division office to see if this could be incorporated.

As this year the theme revolves around plants, there was discussion to see how the clean-up campaign can be connected to the Community in Bloom program. One idea was to see if businesses could 'adopt' parts of the city, much like how the downtown planters were adopted last year, with that business doing what they can to keep their adopted part of the city clean and tidy.

Residents are encouraged to do their part to keep their residence clean, including boulevards and lanes adjoining their property.