An often invisible force of more than 1,000 people is behind the cleanliness of Suffolk’s roads and highways.

The city’s adopt-a-street and adopt-a-spot program featured 1,148 volunteers, 4,617 man-hours and 846 bags of litter and loads of other debris collected during fiscal year 2015.

And it all took place at very little cost to the city, which pays only for the trashbags and picking up the filled bags.

“It creates a better place to live,” said Wayne Jones, the city’s litter control coordinator.

Jones said the city appreciates the participating groups for contributing to such a successful year. The city also is looking for additional groups who want to become involved in the program.

“A lot of these groups have a lot of community service hours they have to do,” Jones said.

The city provides litter grabbers, safety vests and gloves, in addition to the bags and the free trash collection.

“They don’t actually have to dispose of any trash themselves,” Jones said. “We try to make it really simple for them.”

Groups who are involved in the program do so for a variety of reasons.

For Lyndsey Paschal, the motivation came from a desire to honor a friend.

Savannah Scheil died in a car crash on Lake Prince Road in April 2013. Paschal had been friends with her since the sixth grade.

“She had a lot of friends from many different groups,” Paschal said. “She was just friends with everybody.”

Paschal said Savannah’s family and friends decided to honor her by cleaning up the stretch of road where she died.

“We wanted to turn an area that was so tragic to everybody into something beautiful,” Paschal said. “After high school, you lose touch with so many people, so we felt this was a good way for everybody to come together and put all differences aside and honor her like she deserved.”

Paschal said about 15 to 20 people typically help clean up the trash.

Another group of high school friends, who are still in high school, cleans up the stretch of Sleepy Hole Road from Kings Highway to Nansemond Parkway.

“I really like volunteering,” said Katelynn Hodgkiss, a senior at Nansemond River High School and a member of the school’s Future Business Leaders of America. She said she was expecting more trash than the group found on its most recent clean-up, when it collected 11 bags of trash.

“It works out to be a good project for us,” said Jason Bartholomew, a business and personal finance teacher at the school and advisor for the club. “It’s right next door to the school, and it’s re-occurring. It’s got a bunch of benefits.”

For the Babbtown Bowmen, a hunt club, the program means they are able to give back to the community.

“The community has been good to us by letting us hunt the land,” said Troy Babb, a member of the club. “It’s a good program. I just wish more people would get in and pitch in. It doesn’t take that much time to do it.”

The Babbtown Bowmen work part of Babbtown Road, which also is taken care of in other parts by Lane Environmental and the Be Still Hunt Club.

The Suffolk Crime Fighters likens the program to fixing the proverbial broken window, lest its presence engender crime.

“We wanted to do something to give a service back to our community, a service that goes beyond the badge,” said Timothy Duncan. The group comprises police officers and their family and friends, although it’s not affiliated with the police department.

“Our way of fixing the broken windows is just picking up trash,” Duncan said. “A clean community can equate to a safe community, because it shows people are taking an investment in the community.”

The Suffolk Crime Fighters group has two roads — the block bounded by West Constance Road, Church Street, Western Avenue and North Main Street, and Hampton Roads Parkway between College Drive and Harbour View Boulevard.

Jones said anyone who would like more information on the adopt-a-street and adopt-a-spot programs can call him at 514-7604. But he’d really like for the community to work the volunteer groups out of a job by not littering in the first place.

“Suffolk is in the watershed for the Chesapeake Bay,” he said. “Eighty percent of the trash is eventually going to the water.”