Sunday was cleanup day at the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Summit Hill.

Around 20-25 volunteers from three area churches spent the afternoon picking up trash and landscaping the 12-acre property on East White Street.

Sharon Richter, vicar at Zion Lutheran Church in Nesquehoning, said her church along with St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Summit Hill and St. John Slovak Lutheran Church in Lansford participated in the cleanup.

"Sunday is a dedicated day of service for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America so churches all around the country are doing different projects to help in the community," Richter said. "It can be any kind of public service and in talking with David Wargo, who is the GAR Cemetery president and serves on St. Paul's council, we knew this cleanup needed to be done and would make a great project."

There are two cleanups each year at the cemetery, which still routinely 15 burials each year and 9,000 graves already in existence.

In the fall, volunteers pick up trash and remove any leftover flower arrangements placed on graves in the spring and summer.

For more, read the print edition of the Times News.