PORTLAND — If you provide for earth, it seems, earth just might provide for you.

Residents of Portland’s Rosemont neighborhood wielding grabbers and trash bags hit Capisic Pond Park in force Saturday under a banner of sparkling spring weather.

The Earth Day cleanup event is hosted by Portland Parks Conservancy and the City of Portland.

At 18 locations across the city, including Peaks Island, volunteers took to the streets and sidewalks, ditches and pond banks.

“Think clean water — think where trash is going to flow,” neighborhood captain Jessica Teesdale told a crowd of around 20 volunteers at the Capisic Pond Park entrance.

The park stays relatively clean, those who use it and showed up Saturday to care for it say. It’s a vibrant community hub for dog-walkers, bird-watchers and ice-skaters.

When the COVID-19 pandemic pushed everyone outdoors, people in the park became more friendly with one another, said Mike Kramer, a longtime Rosemont resident who attended Saturday’s event with his wife, Beth.

Down the hill, Burke Cherrie watched as his son Penn, 7, toyed with a vine.

Penn was feeling particularly amped to find and remove invasive bittersweet, a vine he had learned to identify at another cleanup.

“These shared spaces are something we all have to take care of, and for him to see everyone from the community — kids at the bus stop that he knows and other families and older folks — come together to do it together, I think is important,” Cherrie said. “Parks are about connection and safe spaces, and we all benefit from them.”

On Congress Street in downtown, a trio of volunteers made their way east, filling their bags mostly with cigarette butts.

They were giddy in the weekend sun and the warmth of those passing by.

“We all love Portland,” one said.