Around 30 elementary school students and five adults gathered in Goshen Saturday in an effort to clean up their community.

The group worked all about town picking up trash from roadsides and other visible areas, and had collected roughly 15 bags of trash by the end of the day.

“We started on opposite ends of town with three 11-man teams, and we just kind of all worked our way toward the middle, and then we met at the town hall for refreshments,” said Goshen mayor Jack Waller. “After that, we went back and cleaned up the ball fields around the high school.”

The students were part of the Goshen Elementary School Junior Beta Club, and club co-sponsor Jessica Walker said the opportunity to help beautify Goshen was one that could not be ignored.

“Our organization has a civic aspect to it, so we felt like this would be a good opportunity to do some community service,” Walker said. “Lots of the kids live here in Goshen, and their parents live here in Goshen, so it feels good to be able to give back to the community that has helped to support us.”

The cleanup, which was part of Piles for Alabama, has been held in years past, but Waller said this year’s may be the best yet.

“We wound up with about 35 people, which is our biggest turnout since we started doing this,” Waller said. “It ‘s been wonderful and the town looks great.”

While picking up trash may not seem like an elementary school student’s ideal Saturday, Walker said the members of the Junior Beta Club were glad to be there.

“They worked hard, but they also had a lot of fun,” Walker said. “They really enjoyed it because there was a lot of teamwork involved, which is another aspect of our organization.”

By the end of the clean-up, however, it was not just the Junior Beta Club giving something to Goshen, it was Goshen giving something to the Junior Beta Club.

Waller presented co-sponsors Walker and Deana Elmore with a $250 check that will go towards the club’s spring break trip to Washington, D.C., in spring of 2011.