In May 2026, Step Up Ozark started our first group cleanup project.
The Shops of Ozark shopping center on Highway 231 had been neglected by its property owners for some time, and substantial litter had accumulated in the parking lot and the edges of the property.
Why Here?
The Shops of Ozark is a major shopping center in the heart of Ozark. It has four restaurants, two coffee shops, a dollar store, a gym, a nail salon, a furniture store and more.
Visitors passing through Ozark on the way to the beach or to Montgomery often stop here for lunch. Their first impression of Ozark shouldn’t be a parking lot full of trash.
We decided to fix that.
How did it get so bad?
The Shops of Ozark had been neglected for a long time. Business owners we talked to in the shopping center say that the property owners did not employ any sort of parking lot cleanup service.
For a 413,000 square foot shopping center, there were only 4 publicly accessible trash cans, none of them along the main frontage of the shopping center. Of the major businesses contributing to litter on site — the restaurants, coffee shops, and dollar store, only two offered an exterior publicly accessible trashcan.
Dumpsters on site were often observed overflowing, suggesting that there was inadequate waste disposal infrastructure on the property.
Inadequate property supervision meant that the gully behind the shopping center often became a spot for illegal dumping.
The Cleanups
The cleanup of the Shops of Ozark took three weeks. Volunteers met on Saturday mornings — our average turnout was 16 people. A total of 37 individual volunteers helped collect garbage over those three weeks, ranging in age from under 5 years old to over 70.
Members of the Ozark City Council attended two of our cleanup days, allowing us to open dialogues with them about how the city government can hold commercial property owners accountable for the state of their properties.
In total, we collected 69 bags of trash from this shopping center, along with other large pieces of trash — tires, a vacuum cleaner, commercial trash like a plastic loveseat cover and a 5G network advertising poster from AT&T, lots of large pieces of Styrofoam, discarded garden hoses, and more.
What We Couldn’t Get
Despite our best efforts, there was still some trash on site we couldn’t collect. The gully behind the shopping center has some illegal dumping material — mattresses and other large trash that are too far down a steep hill for us to access at this time.
Rain over the three weeks of the cleanup turned those slopes into muddy, treacherous spots where we felt it was unsafe to try to work.
We plan to try to return in the future during drier, cooler weather to collect these items.
Next Steps
While the shopping center has been returned to a positive state, the underlying reasons for the shopping center’s state of disarray remain. We will be continuing discussions with the Ozark City Council and with business owners within the shopping center to prevent the shopping center from entering such a state of disarray again. Some of our objectives:
- Increase the number of publicly accessible trash cans at this shopping center to at least 12.
- Work with city government to increase enforcement of commercial property cleanliness standards.
- Advocate for the property owners to employ a litter cleanup service.
Gratitude
- We’d like to offer thanks to Ozark City Councilwoman Brenda Simechak for the donation of trash grabbers and hi-vis vests to make this cleanup possible.
- We’d like to offer thanks to Ozark City Councilmen Les Perault, Bryan Macario, and Winston Jackson for their time and effort helping us on-site with our cleanups.
- We’d like to offer very special thanks to the 37 volunteers who made this cleanup possible:
- Adam
- Angie
- Bill K.
- Bill M.
- Brenda
- Bryan
- Debby
- Deb
- Elizabeth
- Jana’e
- Janet
- Jude
- Karen
- Kim
- Kittiara
- Les
- Lucas
- Lydia
- Marianela
- Mary
- Megan
- Robyn
- Rita
- Ryan
- Shiloh
- Stephan
- Suzette
- Suzi
- Tabitha
- Teresa
- Tina
- Tonya
- Trisha
- Willow
- Winston
- Xalee
- Zac
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