They came to take out the trash.

When 16 people gathered to clean up Atwood Street in… They came to take out the trash.

When 16 people gathered to clean up Atwood Street in Oakland Saturday, however, they were driven by a greater motive.

“We wanted to do some outreach to the community,” said Brent Rondon, president of the Latin American Cultural Union and an employee at Duquesne University.

Members and friends of the cultural union joined a group from the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, as well as several other volunteers, in “Keep it Clean, Oakland,” an initiative sponsored by the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation. The program, which began in August 2003, aims at bringing community groups, neighborhoods and students together to improve Oakland’s appearance.

From the first cleanup date up to this Saturday, 1,248 people have collected 343 bags of trash for the program, according to Erin Ramsay of the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation. The groups have not yet reported how many bags they collected this week.

For the members of the cultural union, the cleanup provided an opportunity for the group, which is housed in the OPDC office in Oakland, to become more visible in the community.

“We also wanted to help the young people to be a part of the community,” Rondon added, gesturing with a latex-gloved hand toward Frick International Academy eighth grader Eric Martinez, of Mexico, who came out with the cultural union to gather trash.

For members of the Islamic Center, participating in the event served as both an opportunity to be recognized as members of the community and as a way to fulfill moral obligation.

“When we were approached, we considered that it was very much close to our beliefs,” said Taqiuddin Ahmed, the imam –or spiritual leader — of the center. Ahmed explained that, according to Islamic beliefs handed down by the Prophet, Mohammed, a person is obligated to be a good neighbor and to keep his area clean.

Ahmed said that he hopes to do more work in the community, as the opportunities arise.

For Terri Wilcox and her daughter, Shannon, the cleanup offered both community outreach and an activity to help fill the summer. Shannon, who recently moved to Pittsburgh from Arizona, said she has been looking for a variety of volunteer opportunities to stay busy.

“I didn’t want to sit at home all summer,” she said.

Although Shannon came up with the idea that she and her mother volunteer, Terri Wilcox, the area manager for Boston Market restaurants, saw another practical benefit to the work.

“We see a need here to get out and meet some folks here in the neighborhood,” Terri said.

The cleanup also made some volunteers more aware of their surrounding community. Members of the cultural union said that Atwood Street was cleaner than they expected — although the trash still inspired some ideas.

“[The landlords] should force the tenants to keep it clean,” said Salome Gutierrez, who teaches Quechua, an Incan language, in Pitt’s linguistics department. She explained that some of the garbage in the alleys between houses appeared to have been there for months, or even years.

Gutierrez is also a member of the Latin American Cultural Union, which meets the first Friday of every month at Cealito Lindo Mexican Restaurant.

For OPDC, bringing out community members in the summertime solves another big problem. With the summer semester, the corporation loses a major chunk of regular volunteers when many fraternity and sorority members travel home.

In addition to Keep it Clean, Oakland, the OPDC recently began a trash-collection project for student move-in and move-out dates. In April, the group placed four or five trash bins throughout off-campus housing in Oakland and collected more than 20 tons of trash, Ramsay said. The corporation plans to bring in trash bins again in August, although Ramsay said OPDC is still doing fund raising. The corporation generally receives money from Oakland universities, residents, students and landlords, Ramsay said, though she hopes to increase support from landlords.

“Pitt has been very good about giving money in the past,” she explained.

On July 12, OPDC will host a neighborhood housing forum in the William Pitt Union.