SIDNEY -- Keep Sidney Beautiful director Lasandra Buckner came before the Sidney City Council Tuesday evening with a challenge. 

She asked Mayor Brad Sherman to sign the "Greatest American Cleanup Pledge." In her application for an agenda item, Buckner said the pledge means the City "enters into agreement to take the steps to keep our community clean." 

"It's a pledge saying we're going to take the initiative to keep the city clean by doing three different activities. One is to do the Great Trash Race that we've already started planning and that takes place in June. And the second one would be a beautification activity. It would be some type of wall art or planting trees, and the third one would be to celebrate our accomplishments for the year with some type of activity," Buckner said in the council meeting Tuesday evening.

The program is an effort to reduce the impact of litter on communities. The goal of Keep America Beautiful is if 25,000 communities take the pledge, litter can be reduced by 25 percent. Communities of 100,000 or less take a three-step pledge, and cities larger than 100,000 agree to a five-step pledge. The five-step ledge includes community cleanups, planting events, recycling drives, community dialogs, and a community celebration.