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NAPLES — There are just some days when you want to throw open the windows and clean out the house.

Figuratively, that’s what volunteers from numerous Southwest Florida do-good groups did for the area’s beaches on Saturday morning.

Friends of Lowdermilk Beach Park, Keep Collier Beautiful, Collier County Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) and some who just saw the event advertised turned out Saturday morning to pick up cigarette butts, cans, bottles, fishing wire and hooks, and even an abandoned beach chair.

Trash collectors also combed the sand Saturday morning in an effort to clean up Bonita Beach.

At Lowdermilk Park in Naples, siblings were part of the clean team.

“We bike everyday at sunset here,” said Sophia Loftus, 13, who was ready to head out to the beach with her brother, Ryan Loftos, 9.

“We saw the signs looking for volunteers, so we came. We have to keep our beaches clean,” Sophia said.

The signs were posted by Leif and Maja Haraldson and fellow Friends of Lowdermilk, who were also handing out T-shirts.

The couple has been walking -- and cleaning -- the beach for 10 years now, said Maja Haraldson, who is a Lowdermilk ambassador.

“Whatever doesn’t belong in nature,” Leif Haraldson said.

The junk people leave behind is harmful to sea creatures, the 70-something beach lover said.

Take plastic bags, for example.

“People don’t think plastic bags (left behind) are a biggie, but (sea) animals think its food,” Maja Haraldson, 70, said.

The couple has seen dolphins that died, and when they were examined, plastic bags were found inside them.

“They died from it,” she said.

But sometimes it isn’t death: just captivity.

“My husband has saved quite a few birds,” Maja Haraldson said, immediately recalling a seagull that had become entangled in the fishing line, which was wrapped around its neck.

The couple freed the bird and it happily flew away.

“We’re nature lovers and animal lovers,” she said. “This is really a love statement.”

Some 20 or 30 students from around Collier County gathered to help, according to Jennifer Smith, SWAT Coordinator of Health Education with the Collier County Health Department.

Gulf Coast High School student Olivia Perez, 15, doesn’t even swim at Lowdermilk but turned out to help.

“It’s important to clean the beach up,” she said, noting that she can usually be found at Clam Pass.

Community School of Naples’ Nikkie Sardelli, 16, also had the spirit.

“We found an old beach chair on the beach and brought it back,” Sardelli said.

Sponsors provided the T-shirts and water. Next year, volunteers would be very grateful for caps to protect their heads from the pounding, hot sun.

Organizers won’t know how much trash was collected until Naples solid waste workers pick up the trash bags on Sunday and weigh it, Maja Haraldson said.

Volunteers scheduled to work up and down the beach included some 100 volunteers at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park.

Xtreme Boat Rentals was scheduled to take 15 to 20 environmental club students from Seacrest Country Day School out to Naples Bay as part of International Coastal Cleanup.

At Bonita Beach, Mayor Ben Nelson’s company, Nelson Marine, hosted the annual cleanup.

The company provided residents a chance to give back to the community, but it also served as an opportunity to collect data on the weight of trash, recyclables and cigarette butts plucked from Bonita’s beaches.

The cleanup “brings attention to the amount of litter here (and) educates people,” Nelson said. “It gives people a sense of pride in their community.”

Russ Weaver brought his daughter, Chloe, 6, to the cleanup, as he’s done every year since 2002.

He helps separate and weigh the trash as it comes in.

Last year, the south Lee cleanup produced an estimated six tons of trash off the beach, but Weaver explains it’s all in how much volunteer help arrives.

Numbers were low last year, but in previous years, tallies were closer to 10 tons to 12 tons of garbage.

“The trash is out there. We would have had more last year, if we had more people,” Weaver said.

Andre Dollar, 4, and his older brother, Slade Dollar, 6, walked the beach and picked up random cellophane wrappers, scraps of paper and empty beer cans.

Family friend Meredith Shuler said she and the children’s mother thought it was a good event for youngsters.

“We’re trying to teach the kids something,” she said.

College students Dale Ward, 21, and Briana McDougall, 21, collected litter near the volleyball net. Ward will receive extra credit at Edison State College and McDougall will receive service hours at Florida Gulf Coast University for helping out. Yet, it was more than just freebies for the students.

“But, we come to this beach and we like to keep it clean,” McDougall said.