HANSVILLE — When resident Esther Wender and her husband were driving on Hansville Road last spring, they noticed the litter lining the area’s main thoroughfare had become particularly bad.

So the couple asked the Kitsap County Public Works department what could be done about it.

“It was just a notion that we’d like to have the roads clean,” she said.

The county said it couldn’t help the community with the request at the time as it was revamping its roads programs. But in the fall, Wender received a phone call from county officials, asking what the residents wanted.

While Wender initially sought assistance cleaning Hansville Road, the county said that wasn’t allowed because the road is too dangerous to have people working on, with its narrow shoulders and steep embankments. So Wender and the Hansville Community Center Board identified several alternatives: Twin Spits Road, between Hansville Road and Hood Canal Drive; Little Boston Road, from Hansville Road to Cliffside Road; and Sherlind Avenue and Admiralty Lane, off Twin Spits Road.

The community’s first clean-up party is expected to take place this spring and the county public works department will be supplying materials and safety equipment, including specialized sticks to pick up garbage, trash bags, safety vests and road signs to alert drivers of volunteers on the road, Wender said.

There will be a training session from the county during the first event, explaining how the program works and what to pick up and not pick up, she said. Items volunteers need to avoid include remnants of drug paraphernalia and trash that is toxic, like paint or chemicals of various kinds.

Since it was announced last year that Hansville would start such a program, Wender has received phone calls from residents who say they have been trying to do their part when they go out for walks in their neighborhoods.

The program should not only help keep roads clean, but should be educational in nature as well.

“It helps people be more alert to littering,” Wender said. “(The county) particularly likes to have young people involved because they are the ones they want to train to not litter.”

Anyone 15 or older can participate in the clean-up days, but those ages 15-17 need to have guardian’s permission, she said.

For more information, call Wender at (360) 638-2952.