Cleanup in Sudbury ward to benefit foodbank, councillor Michael Vagnini says

A Sudbury city councillor is recruiting his constituents to help clean up his ward, with a promise to help out the food bank.

During the month of May, Ward 2 councillor Michael Vagnini is running his May We Clean initiative.

He's asking residents in his ward to pick up litter in their neighbourhoods and then send him a picture or a text of the end results.

Vagnini says for every ten pieces of litter picked up, he'll donate a dollar of his own money to the Walden Food Bank.

"My hope for the next 30 days is you know the old saying paying it forward or let's get contagious and my hope is that it just doesn't stop here, it goes all over," he said.

"You know we have great waste management services at the city but this one is taking it a step forward. It's making it fun. It's making it fun for the people."

Vagnini says even though he just started the initiative, he's already been getting a positive response.

"We have all kinds of people sending me pictures of them with their children picking up garbage, children picking up garbage while sitting at their bus stop," he said.

"We have a daycare [in the community]. They have five at the daycare, they were out picking up garbage and they had a wheelbarrow full of garbage."

Vagnini says he'll cap his financial donation to the food bank at $1,000. He adds several businesses are considering coming on board with more money.