Homewood Nation

Dozens of volunteers in orange vests are working throughout Homewood this morning, in the Homewood-Squirrel Hill Redd-Up. The event happens on the third Saturday of April every year.

Here, some of Bethany Baptist Church's 30 or so volunteers tame a wild lot in the 7700 block of Tioga Street:

Across the street, a second crew gathered this mound of debris and trash in their first hour of work:

Kayanna Simpson, 17, and Emmanuel Mitchell, 14, both of Wilkinsburg, were among the volunteers. I asked them how they learned about the Redd-Up and why they decided to participate.:

The kids are alright.

Besides the Bethany Baptist contingent on Tioga, groups of volunteers worked on Monticello Street and on the streets around the Homewood-Brushton YMCA, where the basketball court was the main staging area and where volunteers will reconvene to end the day with lunch.

Jose Diaz, senior community organizer at Operation Better Block Inc., coordinates the event each year. He estimated the today's total turnout at about 110.

"The exciting thing was, there were not that many volunteers at first," he said. "but as the morning dragged on more and more residents showed up."