ESCANABA — Rain or shine, the annual Esky Cleanup event is Saturday.

Ed Legault, the executive director of the Escanaba Downtown Development Authority, said the event has been going on for eight years.

“It started out very small and last year we had our largest participation ever,” he said.

Last year, the event had around 400 volunteers cleaning up the downtown area of Escanaba, which is 10 times as many volunteers from when it first began.

“It’s grown a lot, we have a lot more business sponsorship and we are always looking for more businesses — if they’d like to provide any type of financial help, offsetting T-shirts for the volunteers or food we serve them after, or if they just want to participate helping out with the cleanup themselves,” Legault said.

The cleanup takes place from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday, May 18.

“It’s basically … between 1st Avenue South and 1st Avenue North, the length of the downtown, as well as Ludington Park,” said Legault on the downtown area where the cleaning up will take place.

The focus is cleaning up the parking lots and alleys along Ludington Street by removing trash and debris from the winter.

Legault explained pre-registration has closed for the event, so people interested in volunteering are asked to show up Saturday between 9 and 10 a.m. to sign up at the Escanaba Marketplace.

“It’s a mesh of everyone. I mean, we have some senior citizens that participate (and) we have kids that participate. It’s a great opportunity from a civic perspective to bring everyone together to work on a common goal,” he said.

T-shirts for the volunteers are first come, first serve.

After the cleanup event, there will be food, prize drawings and entertainment for the participants to enjoy at the Escanaba Marketplace.

Legault said when volunteers sign up they are automatically entered into prize drawings.

For more information, go to www.eskycleanup.com or call 906-212-5555.