Mary Richards started out with three bags and came back with three and a half. Somewhere out there in a ditch was a perfectly good one. So she filled that up with trash and brought it back along with the first three.

Multiply her bags by maybe 800, and that's the impact Saturday from Stash the Trash, Veishea Service Day and a new effort called Keep Iowa State Beautiful. Between students volunteering to help out with several service projects or pitching in to collect litter with community members all over town, that's the number of volunteers who showed up.

Clear, blue skies marked the day. The temperature was cool. As the day wore on, an east wind blew hard. But students, Cub Scouts, Kiwanians, Rotarians, church groups and hundreds of others filled two large Dumpsters provided by Chitty Garbage Service and stacked up two dozen discarded tires.

This year also saw increased numbers of volunteers organized by area businesses, including Mary Greeley Medical Center, Best Buy and Target, in addition to Wheatsfield Grocery, which helped with trash pickup and by providing food.

Members of the campus Rotaract club served hot dogs, soft drinks, chips and fruit at the drop-off site at Reiman Gardens. Food was provided by Wheatsfield, Hy-Vee East and West, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Supercenter, Cub Foods and Fareway.

Veishea Service Day volunteers also worked at projects including painting and mulching at the Boys and Girls Club, building at two Habitat for Humanity homes, recreating with residents at The Waterford, helping at the Ames Historical Society, organizing donations at the ACCESS shelter, cleaning up at Ledges State Park and cleaning at Friendship Arc Homes.