It’s a promise the Mayor of Macon, Robert Reichert, made one year ago and that's to clean up Macon neighborhoods five blocks at a time in a five week time period.

City employees were very busy in the fort hill neighborhood in East Macon Monday and city officials say it's the first round of many.

"Today you see we have crews out working on the vacant lots,” says Keith Moffett the Assistant to the Chief Administrative Officer. “Cutting back the grass. We are going to be cleaning the side walk."

It’s the city of Macon’s second year of the 5x5 program and people here in the fort hill neighborhood say it's making a difference already. "Oh they are doing good,” said Meredith Gibson a Fort Hill Street resident. “They are doing pretty good. They did that area over there."

Several city departments are creating what they call “needed change", like filling pot holes and making homes easier to identify.

Tomekia Deson also lives on Fort Hill Street, and says adding street addresses were genius. "I love it! They put my address on the side walk. Thanks you guys."

Members of the Macon-Bibb Fire department are also contributing to the 5x5 by distributing storm preparedness packages to all the neighbors in the area. Moffett tells us why they are needed, "I’ll give you an example with hurricane Sandy, and we need those resources right here Macon.”

Not only is the program beautifying the neighborhood, but they are taking strides to create awareness for residents both old and new.

"I am new to the neighborhood. I have been here a year and I haven't had any trouble since I have been here," says Deson. The city wants to keep it that way. Police officers are canvassing the streets to create relationships with neighbors.

Some residents say they were seeing all the workers daily and didn’t understand what was going on, but now that they do they like it, "Now I know what they are doing. They are caring about the community,” says Meredith Gibson.


Moffett adds his thought on the program, "The first year was a growing process and we think that we are just going to keep getting better as we do it. We'll be coming back again in 6 months to ward 1."

Moffett also adds they are trying to rid the neighborhood of unwanted debris. If you live in fort hill, they're asking you place debris on the curb for pick up.