David Hertzberg, Joplin’s public works director, said the city later will have contract crews travel through the streets to collect the stacked limbs in a program similar to its annual leaf-pickup effort.

“This is phase one,” he said of Sunday’s cleanup.

As for what the city will do with the debris once it is collected, Hertzberg said officials are weighing the options.

For AmeriCorps, the plan is to help the city establish the framework for what could be a sustained volunteer cleanup effort, Snyder said. A local organization would lead the campaign.

“We are trying to set up the infrastructure,” Snyder said.

Most of the volunteers arrived Sunday morning at Memorial Hall with their own equipment, including chain saws.

One of those volunteers was Jay St. Clair, who led a contingent from College Heights Christian Church.

The church has helped with other cleanup and housing rehabilitation projects in the past, St. Clair said, and it sees volunteer work as part of its mission.

“We just really believe that God has put us here to meet people’s needs,” he said. “Jesus would be out there today with a chain saw.”

St. Clair and his team headed out to a home near 16th Street and Indiana Avenue. As some used chain saws to cut down mangled branches and limbs still dangling from trees, others trooped back and forth carrying debris to the curb.

After 10:30 a.m., the group had finished its work and had a heap of limbs more than 6 feet tall ready for pickup.

Then, it was on to the next house.

Butch Haslip, of Carthage, was one of five workers from Cycle Connection who volunteered to help and who worked on St. Clair’s team.

For him, the reason to be out was simple.

“They need help, and we can do it,” he said.