Volunteers pose for a photo around the bags of garbage and debris they gathered Saturday morning from the banks of the Fox River in Elgin. (Cheryl Crates / HANDOUT)

With the family’s pet lizard along for a shoulder ride, Devona Jones and her daughter Jordyn, 9, headed over to the Gail Borden Public Library parking lot Saturday morning to take part in a spring cleanup of the Fox River.

“Jordyn wanted to help out the environment,” Devona Jones said as the duo signed in for the project.

The cleanup, sponsored by the Friends of the Fox River and state Rep. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, was the pair’s first time participating in such an event.

Before heading out for the task at hand, they joined more than three dozen other volunteers to hear a little about why they were doing what they were doing from Gary Swick, president of Friends of the Fox River.

Friends of the Fox River president Gary Swick talks to volunteers Saturday before they head out on a spring cleanup of the riverbank, from the Gail Borden Public Library north to the Interstate 90 overpass in Elgin. Among those listening to Swick are Devona Jones, whose pet lizard rode her shoulder, and her daughter, Jordyn, 9, both of Elgin. (Mike Danahey / The Courier-News)

The goal was to spend time outside while doing a little heavy lifting, “one cigarette filter, one plastic bottle at a time,” Swick said.

“This is an opportunity to work on your relationship with the river,” he said.

Those present included residents, Elgin police officers, members of Elgin Police Explorer Post 1445 and students ranging in age from grade school to college.

Outfitted with buckets, garbage bags, trash pickers and gloves, the crews dispersed to various points, mostly along the east bank of the Fox, from the library to about a mile-and-a-half north off the Fox River Trail, near Trout Park and the Interstate 90 overpass.

One group worked directly west across the river from the library, cleaning up trash in an area where homeless people have been known to camp, Swick said.

The cleanup was one of the first events she took part in when she took office in 2014, Moeller said. They find fishing tackle and related fishing items and lots of plastic bottles, she said.

With their pet lizard along for the ride, Devona Jones and her daughter Jordyn, 9, work to remove litter Saturday from an empty lot next to the Gail Borden Public Library parking lot as part of a volunteer cleanup day. - Original Credit: The Courier-News (Mike Danahey / HANDOUT)

“We’ve found clothing, and it makes you wonder how someone might lose a pair of pants,” Moeller said.

Friends of the Fox River Treasurer Cheryl Crates, of Algonquin, said the riverbank has become cleaner in the last half decade or so. It was not uncommon years ago for cleanup volunteers to find industrial items, likes motors or HVAC compressors, Crates said.

Saturday morning, while scouring the riverbank not far from the library, volunteer Gary Gilmore and granddaughter, Eva Bero, a Moeller staffer, spotted an unexpected bit of nature — a dead beaver. The carcass rested in shallow water by a grate over a stormwater runoff pipe.

Undeterred, the two continued to pick up trash.

Not far from Gilmore and Bero, the Joneses removed debris from the empty lot just north of the library.

Enjoying the morning in the sun, Devona Jones said she might buy trash pickers and head out sometime with her daughter on their own to do their bit to clear away litter from the shores of the Fox River.

Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.

Gary Gilmore, of Elgin, emerges from the banks of the Fox River not far from the Gail Borden Public Library, near where he and granddaughter, Eva Bero, were picking up trash as part of a volunteer cleanup day. (Mike Danahey / The Courier-News)