Service Corps

Participating Communities
Allentown
POM would like to offer special thanks to the City of Allentown for their support in hauling away the trash collected by the POM Service Corps during our cleanups.

Community Involvement
Ownership. When we own something, have a stake in it, we pay attention. When it isn't ours, when we're not a stakeholder, that attention becomes optional. When tree wells and public spaces suffer from chronic litter and weeds, often the culprit is lack of ownership. Residents, whether transient or permanent, of a littered neighborhood will step over trash because they didn’t put it there. No one will pull the weeds from tree wells or sidewalks, because it’s not their responsibility. Often municipalities lack the resources to tend to “important but not urgent” quality of life issues such as these. Properties of Merit ™ Service Corps works to overcome these problems.

By changing the appearance of chronically littered blocks identified by city administration, community leaders and residents with ongoing cleanups over a multiple year period of time, The Properties of Merit ™ Service Corps proactively intervenes in a neighborhood’s decline so that decline is not inevitable but correctable. Through ongoing cleanups of neighborhoods and special areas (water ways, slopes) commencing in the Spring these neighborhoods are visited at least four times annually over a three year period of time, with tree and hardy perennial plantings in the Fall.

Every other Saturday between April and October or more frequently if a community chooses, POM ™ Service Corps volunteers work with organizational volunteers from Junior ROTC Units to churches and corporations, systematically cleaning neighborhoods of debris and litter with municipal Trash and Recycling departments collaboratively removing all collected debris at the end of each cleanup.

Get Involved
If you are a member or leader of a group that is interested in participating in the Service Corps of the POM program, please contact your local POM Leadership Team.