Residents Pitch In to Clear Litter for Operation Sparkle : Neighborhoods: About 5,000 volunteers roll up their sleeves to tackle debris and weeds at 20 Valley locations.

Baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her braces matching the gray skies overhead, 10-year-old Valley resident Jamie Jones was weed whacker for a day.

Along with her mom, Jo Bright-Jones, Jamie on Saturday joined about a dozen others who wielded rakes, brooms and plastic garbage bags to clean up debris along a one-block stretch of Winnetka Avenue near Prairie Street--all those discarded McDonald’s cups, paper bags and forgotten foot-tall weeds.

It was her mom’s idea that Jamie give up her regular weekend-morning routine of video games and cartoons to participate in Operation Sparkle, a one-day community effort in which an estimated 5,000 people rolled up their sleeves at 20 sites from Sylmar to Sherman Oaks for a thankless job residents rarely take the time to tackle: cleaning up after the other guy.

Patrick McNeely, a stout little 13-year-old with a razor wit, summed up his fellow San Fernando Valley residents as he took a break from pushing a bright orange broom: “Basically, people are slobs. They look at trash as something that’s better outside than in their cars.”

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His mother, Joyce McNeely, who works at a local car dealership that was one of the sponsors of the cleanup effort, paused to level a stern mom-like stare at her son.

“Hey, everybody does it. Everybody litters,” the boy exclaimed. “I’ve done it. I’ve seen you do it, too,” he continued, reminding Mom of the gum wrapper he once saw her toss from the car.

McNeely made up for her litter lapse Saturday. When her cleanup group arrived at the neglected stretch of suburban road at 8 that morning, the place was a mess.

“It was horrible,” she said. “It was just a jungle of weeds and trash.”

Chimed in Patrick: “It was a swamp.”

The McNeely’s were not alone Saturday. All over the Valley, armies of volunteers painted over graffiti, picked up trash, groomed parks and swept street curbs.

Last year, 20,000 volunteers donated more than 100,000 hours in four such cleanup days sponsored throughout Los Angeles.

So, why would any self-respecting suburbanite give up a Saturday of lounging around the house to play public janitor for a day? Just ask Jon Tice.

“I just got tired of looking at all the trash,” said the local programmer. “This was an opportunity to do something about it.” He motioned to his wife, Gina, a building manager, working nearby: “I talked her into it.”

Actually, Gina had her own reason for coming: Day after day, she drove by the same sloppy stretch of road. Not only was she doing something for her neighbors, she was giving herself a little piece of mind.

“It’s our community,” she said. “We live in the area. This is our own back yard.”

Other than the afternoon picnic, there were other benefits for volunteering, like basking in the breeze whipped up by passing trucks.

“I love it, it feels good,” Joyce McNeely said, outstretching her arms.

“Ohhhh, I hate it,” countered work mate Jo Bright-Jones. “All that dust!”

Nearby, Bob Reagan was philosophical about all the motorists who passed by, gawking.

“They’re honking their horns at me,” he said. “I think it gives them a little bit of guilt and that’s good. Maybe they’ll be here next year.”