Operation Clean Sweep in Orangeburg County

Much of Mike O ’Cain’s time is consumed with being president of O’Cain Construction Company Inc., a successful construction company, but that did not stop him from carving out time to construct an ambitious prevention campaign to tackle what he sees as a mounting litter problem across Orangeburg County.

O’Cain noticed more trash than normal during a morning bike ride after Christmas in 2015. He said God spoke to him about cleaning the litter up.

“That’s the road I always ride on and for some reason, the trash just stuck out at me more than usual. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Somebody’s got to do something about this trash.’ I felt like the Lord said, ‘Well, you need to pick it up,’” O’Cain said.

He considered picking up litter across the entire county an impossible task and dismissed the idea for about a month. But the notion never completely left him.

“Every day it came right back at me. And so I said, ‘Lord, if this is something you want me to do, I will do it, but you have to put the people in front of me that will help get this done. And so far it has been a well-orchestrated plan to bring people together and get leadership in place,” O’Cain said.

“The only part of the equation lacking now is the 7,500 volunteers.”

O’Cain and five other environmentally friendly Orangeburg County men (Chad Rast, Jerry French, Ken Ferris, Woody Watford and David Jackson) want to take action in the fight against litter with Operation Clean Sweep Orangeburg to be held Saturday, Oct. 15.

The goal is to secure 7,500 volunteers ages 15 and older, to pick up litter along all of the county’s 1,400 miles of paved roads and 900 miles of dirt roads.

“We’re doing road reconnaissance and the GIS Mapping Office in Orangeburg County has set up a website for us. This is going to help us really narrow in on how many people we really do need to get all the roads.

The effort is being supported by the state Department of Transportation and the state Department of Corrections, which have promised to handle the clean up along the county’s interstate highways.

“We contacted Gov. Haley’s office several months ago and she had the departments contact us. They agreed that they would support us and pick up the Interstates 95 and 26 in our county the week prior to Oct. 15,” O’Cain said. The Operation Clean Sweep Orangeburg initiative will cost approximately $65,000, including the cost of advertising, T-shirts and backpacks filled with a water bottle, snack and rain poncho for volunteers.

The Operation Clean Sweep organizational team is also still being supported by the Litter Initiative Group, which held a countywide litter blitz this past year.

“We got introduced to the Litter Initiative Group through Palmetto Pride, and we met with them to just kind of tell them what we were doing.”

“We have them helping us with some of the front-end work of calling Adopt-A-Highway groups and so forth to get them on board with what’s going on”

O’Cain said the main goal of Operation Clean Sweep is to promote community pride and make the county look better to improve the quality of life for all citizens.

“It will not fix the problem, but if it will create some awareness. Maybe this time next year it will be better,” O’Cain said.

We’re going to get through Oct. 15 and if the event goes like we hope it will, and then next year it could be a multicounty event. Who knows where it will go?”

For more information on the litter cleanup, including registering or donating, visit the Operation Clean Sweep Orangeburg website at www.cleanupsc.org or email O’Cain at [email protected].

Original article by Dionne Gleaton, Times & Democrat staff writer.