BATON ROUGE - The founder of a volunteer litter pick-up group feels slighted after she says Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome announced her own litter abatement initiative this month and left her group out of the conversation.

On July 1st, Mayor Broome announced the Corridor Cleaning Program, which employs contractors to pick up litter at 54 intersections across the city of Baton Rouge over the next 50 weeks. 

Keep Tiger Town Beautiful's founder Jennifer Richardson says she's excited about the Corridor Cleaning Program, but wishes she could have contributed her knowledge and resources to the cause. 

"We've been doing it for three and a half years. We would've loved to sit down and say 'Hey, we can do these areas, we're already doing these areas,'" Richardson said.

Richardson believes the $450,000 in funding that was used to launch this new program could've been put to better use, had Broome enlisted volunteers from KTTB for the initiative. One thing Richardson would've liked to see is some of that money going to the police department.

"We could give the police more money to help us with these encampments," Richardson said.

Homeless encampments are a major factor contributing to the city's litter issue, says Richardson. She pointed out an encampment right behind a fence next to Celebration Station on Airline Highway with a pile of garbage sitting close by.

"You wanna take your kids out to have a nice lil time and then you got this, people shooting up and high as a kite," Richardson said.

The intersection of Airline and Old Hammond highways where the encampment Richardson pointed out is located is not on the list of 54 intersections the mayor plans to have routinely picked up.

She also believes many problem areas like O'Neal Lane, Sherwood Forest Boulevard and Airline Highway were unfairly left off of the list. 

"We have to keep all of Baton Rouge clean. If parts of it look horrible, then it makes our whole city look terrible," Richardson said. 

If you want to become a volunteer with Keep Tiger Town Beautiful, you can find more information here.