Cape Coral residents, city employees come together to clean up the city

Caring about the community and loving the city you live in. That is what the Cape Coral city manager says it’s all about when it comes to keeping the city clean.

In the days after Hurricane Ian, much of Cape Coral looked like a disaster. Ten weeks later, the curbs in front of most people’s homes are improving, but there’s still a lot to do.

Residents and city employees spent Friday morning doing what they could by picking up whatever is lying around and throwing it away.

It was the least Heirinch Theuretzbacher could do, but it’s something he takes pride in.

“I usually go out every day. I do my 3-5 miles. I always take a couple shopping bags with me, and I always fill up a minimum of three bags of people throwing just mostly cans and bottles,” said Theuretzbacher.

He encounters the loose trash daily, but he does it anyway. With hurricane debris still out there, Theuretzbacher and his son-in-law Steven from Detriot came out to the clean-up Cape Coral event Friday. They were ready to clean as much as they could.

“It’s a big mess out here. So we got 11 bags,” said Theuretzbacher.

“There’s such so much debris around, right? I mean, the city and the governments can’t manage it all, so we just feel good doing our part trying to clean up as much as we can ourselves,” said Steven Van Milligan.

Volunteers, city council members, and city employees spent the day going all over the city, collecting as much trash as possible and putting it into trash bags.

Every little bit helps to clean the Cape post-storm.

“That’s what it’s all about. Caring about the community. Loving the city that you live in because this is home for 220,000 of us,” said Cape Coral City Manager Rob Hernandez.

“Just wanted to help out the community. You know we’re sad to see all the devastation from Ian, and we wanted to do what we can to build back,” said Valerie Eberly.

The city had hundreds of volunteers out Friday, including help from Keep Lee County Beautiful.

Filling as many trash bags as possible was the goal for volunteers and city employees.

“It’s amazing to see how much storm debris has been removed, but there’s still a lot to be done,” said Darryl Eberly.

Darryl and Valerie Eberly saw the Facebook post for the clean-up Cape Coral event and wanted to help pick up the little things on the side of the road at the intersection of Chiquita and Cape Coral Parkway.

Once those bags were filled, volunteers would put them in the medians so public works crews could go around and collect them.