DOWAGIAC — Standing under a beam of hot sun Wednesday afternoon, Cass County Conservation District employee Korie Blyveis bent over to pick a up a metallic candy wrapper, placing it into a clear garbage bag.

“I see a few more things down here,” she said to a number of people around her, all wearing protective gloves and squinting as they faced the sunlight. “I’m just going to pop down there to grab them.”

Blyveis was one of several community members who, outside the Family Fare in Dowagiac, picked up trash along the Dowagiac River Wednesday. The Cass County Conservation District partnered with MEANDERS, a local group dedicated to restoring the Dowagiac River to a free-flowing river, to perform the cleanup. In addition to cleaning litter and trash from the river, volunteers also placed a wire fence around the area to help prevent trash from entering the water in the future.

“We wanted to clean this up because it was getting pretty bad,” Blyveis said. “We are trying to keep the area clean, so that more trash won’t add to it.”

Blyveis said it is important to keep the river clean in order to protect the environment of Cass County.

“The wildlife get caught in the different trash and try to eat it, so that’s my most important reason for cleaning [the river],” she said. “But also, it’s important to beautify the river, so that everyone can enjoy it. If it is filled with trash, people won’t respect it. We want this to be a beautiful space that will be kept that way.”

Scott Wyman, a volunteer with MEANDERS and the Conservation District board, said he wanted to help with the clean up because he cares about the environment of Cass County.

“We want to give back and be good stewards of the land,” he said. “This is just a wonderful opportunity to give back.”

Wyman said that the river was already looking better than it did Tuesday, and that he is hoping that the clean-up and the new fence will keep the river cleaner going forward.

“We like to be proactive when we can. So, once we get this cleaned up, we want to find some management measures so we don’t have to keep coming back here,” he said. “This is the only environment we have. We have to protect it.”

Though Wyman and other volunteers spent hours Wednesday cleaning the river, the effort to keep the river clean is not over, Blyveis said, adding that every person can have a part in keeping the city clean and the environment safer.

“First, take care of your own waste,” she said. “Reduce, reuse, recycle. And it you have a chance, clean something up.”

To help keep litter out of the river, Blyveis recommended keeping a trash bag in the car to collect litter, so that it does not fly out of the car and into nature. She also recommended that people organize their own independent cleanups within their schools or workplaces.

“Everyone can make the world a better place,” Blyveis said. “I believe that we have to take care of the world and the environment around us.”