Chamber’s Community Cleanup Draws a Crowd : Activism: Volunteers and people ordered by the courts work side by side, painting, sweeping and picking up trash.

Some felt it was their civic duty. Others said the judge made them do it. Whatever the motive, more than 50 people showed up Saturday to paint, sweep, weed and pick up garbage during a community cleanup sponsored by the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce.

“I guess it sounds kind of corny, but it feels good to help your community,” said Jessica Brauner, a senior at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills. Jessica and her friend, Marissa Hecker, also a senior, spent the morning with other volunteers applying a coat of cream-colored paint on the walls of the Corbin Avenue underpass beneath the Ventura Freeway.

The Chamber of Commerce combined forces for the day with George Heytens, director of Woodland Hills’ Neighborhood Beautification Program. Heytens supervises people ordered by the court to perform community service by helping clean up communities.

Several adults convicted of misdemeanors worked side by side with half a dozen students from Chaminade College Preparatory School in West Hills, painting another Ventura Freeway underpass at Shoup Avenue.

“Usually at this time on Saturdays I’m snuggled deep in sleep,” said Doris Price of Canoga Park, working off the first day of her 20-day community service sentence. Price said she got into trouble after somebody tried to snatch her purse in a store. During the ensuing scuffle, a knife fell out of her purse, and she was charged with assault.

But Price traded in her knife for a paint-roller Saturday and said she won’t be carrying weapons in her purse anymore. “This could be a good thing, to beautify a community,” she said, paint dripping from her roller. “It think it’s good to be a real part of where you live.”

Greg Williams, chairman of the chamber’s anti-graffiti and beautification committee, says the cleanup program is designed to get all types of people involved. Williams began conducting twice-annual community cleanups three years ago. A special hot line has also helped reduce the amount of graffiti in the community, he said.

Along Oxnard Street near De Soto Avenue, another team of volunteers, led by retiree Gloria Mogul, who also works with Heyten’s Community Beautification Program, hacked down a 50-yard swath of weeds next to a sidewalk near an undeveloped lot. “When we do this, we do it well,” said Mogul, snipping away at more weeds in the gutter.