It’s not enough. But, it’s a start.

For Selma Mayor George Evans, what happened Saturday is no way the end of what has become a very important project.

“We don’t want this to be the only one,” Evans told the more than 100 volunteers who gathered at city hall Saturday. “This is a start. We have never done this before so in the future, maybe six months, we can come back here and do some things. So this is a learning experience for us.”

The project was an organized citywide clean up that took aim at four of the city’s wards and collected hundreds of pounds of litter, trash and other debris.

And, for the sake of Selma and city leadership’s mission of improving the city’s image, Saturday’s cleanup cannot be the first and only one, but rather the first of many.

It is important for organizers to seek out more civic groups, clubs and churches to help, even if the targeted areas are not those around their homes or churches.

This effort is one that benefits us all, but cannot go to waste. If it proves to be the only one, then the spirit of those volunteers, some of who do not even call Selma home, would have been taken for granted.

If this proves to be the only one then we failed ourselves and did little in the way of proving we can do better.

While we agree with Mayor Evans that this should be the first, we in no way agree that we should wait six months. That is far too long for a job that is far too pressing.

And, in all honesty, an effort like this should not begin at city hall, but rather should begin at club meeting halls and fellowship halls of area churches and in the living rooms of homes throughout Selma.

If we did nothing else than take care of the areas around our own homes, our own businesses and our own churches, then a citywide cleanup on such a large scale would never be necessary.

We applaud those who turned out Saturday to help pick up Selma. Let’s hope the next time we all come together is far sooner than later.