FERRIDAY — A local garden club has decided it’s time to get their town clean.

The Ferriday Garden Club decided to go for gold and, rather than just host a clean-up effort, entered the town in the Louisiana Garden Club Federation’s Cleanest City Contest.

“Our garden club has been active in projects around town for some time trying to do projects to make the town look better,” said Dianne Watson, who is heading up the effort.

“We are not the blue-haired ladies group drinking tea and telling everyone else how to do it. We have our behinds up in the air pulling weeds — we are actually out there doing it.”

The contest really just serves as a frame for a greater goal, though.

“The major reason for this is to get our town clean so we can be proud of it,” Ferriday Garden Club member Lena Bateman said.

The cleanup effort started during the fall, and those involved are doing everything from edging the sidewalks to cleaning up shrubberies.

Club members will soon be taking letters explaining the group’s goals to all of the downtown businesses, and they will be distributing buttons that read “Let’s Clean Up Ferriday.”

“The garden club members are going to all the businesses in town and telling them about this project and giving their encouragement to join along with us because this is a community effort and not just a garden club effort,” Bateman said.

The cleanest city contest dovetails nicely with the town’s downtown revitalization efforts, Mayor Glen McGlothin said.

“It fits right in with what we are doing downtown, but instead of just cleaning up downtown, we are going to clean up the whole town,” McGlothin said.

The town is dedicating a 10-man inmate crew to the cleanup.

“We are going to do everything from mowing grass to planting flowers to pulling weeds,” McGlothin said. “We are going to let 9the garden club) be the lead, and we are going to be the labor.”

The garden club is also working to get local children involved.

The fifth-grade students from Ferriday Upper Elementary School and Huntington School are participating in a poster contest in which the students can choose between the themes of “Keep Ferriday Clean” and “Litter Patrol.”

The posters will be displayed in Ferriday businesses, Bateman said.

Cleanest city judging will take place between the last week in March and the first week in April.

Regardless of the results, Ferriday has already won, Watson said.

“We are going to win just because it has brought so many people together, so we are already winning.”