Every piece of litter tells a story—but it doesn’t have to end on our streets, in our parks, or in our waterways.

EcoClean Guardians Inc. is a woman-founded 501(c)(3) nonprofit transforming environmental cleanup into paid economic opportunity. Instead of relying solely on volunteers, we hire local residents as EcoClean Guardians, paying fair wages to remove litter from neighborhoods, parks, transportation corridors, shorelines, and public spaces. This model creates cleaner communities while providing meaningful income and workforce experience for people who want to improve the places they call home.

Our project focuses on restoring public spaces, preventing trash from entering rivers and oceans, improving neighborhood pride, and strengthening community well-being. Every cleanup is carefully planned with local partners, documented with before-and-after photos, GPS locations, and litter weight data, ensuring complete transparency and measurable environmental impact.

Funding from MaEarth will directly support participant wages, safety equipment, litter collection tools, biodegradable bags, and cleanup operations that allow us to expand into more underserved communities. Every dollar helps place more Guardians in the field, remove more litter from the environment, and create more paid opportunities for local residents.

One of our greatest challenges is that demand from municipalities and community organizations continues to outpace available funding. Communities are asking for more cleanup events than we can currently provide. With additional support, we can deploy more teams, restore more public spaces, protect waterways from pollution, and demonstrate that environmental stewardship and economic opportunity can work hand in hand.

Together, we can build cleaner neighborhoods, healthier ecosystems, and stronger communities—one paid Guardian and one cleanup at a time.