State Street will receive its share of spring cleaning this month, as city officials gathered Wednesday to kick off a month-long campaign to help “put the city’s best foot forward” by cleaning up before events like the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Wisconsin Iron Man come to Madison this summer.

The “clean and green” event is a joint effort by the city of Madison, UW-Madison and District One, the city’s Central Business Improvement District, to wash windows, sweep sidewalks and streets, clean curbs and business entryways, remove debris from tree grates and eliminate graffiti along State Street.

Before handing Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, the first broom to begin sweeping, Mayor Sue Bauman said she knows from experience that avoiding clean-up of dirt or graffiti only invites more litter and vandalism.

“This will be an overall taking back the street from vandals and people that don’t care and showing we do care,” Bauman said. “This is not even for the mayors’ conference or Iron Man — it’s really for us, those who are here every single day.”

The clean-up campaign will attempt to restore State Street one block at a time, starting with the 100 block. Mayor Bauman, property owners, business owners, volunteers, students and District One ambassadors worked to tidy up that block.

“We’ll really work at making sure we clean it up, get gum off streets, clean up graffiti, so we can have a downtown we can be proud of,” Bauman said.

Susan Schmitz, manager of District One, said she hopes the effort will become a yearly event.

“Hopefully this is as successful as it should be at getting people out to really clean our downtown, to take pride in our downtown,” Schmitz said.