Dr. Karen Bell, Keep Liberty Beautiful.
Keep Liberty Beautiful gave away 408 trees and more than 950 flower and vegetable seed packages this past weekend. We hope that all of them get planted and grow to enrich our community and our environment.
We all know that spring is coming. For Keep Liberty Beautiful, that means getting our gardens ready for planting. It is also time for the Great American Cleanup!
The 2022 Great American Cleanup (GAC) is officially kicking off on March 19 in Liberty County. Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s leading environmental education nonprofit, will launch the 24th annual event this spring. The GAC is the country’s most extensive community improvement program. Each spring, it kicks off and engages more than 4 million volunteers in more than 20,000 communities.
In Liberty County, we participate in this national effort each year because we know how vital a clean community is for our quality of life. Across America, organizations like ours will recruit volunteers to engage in litter cleanups to beautify parks, trails and recreation areas and clean shorelines and waterways. This will help reduce waste, increase recycling, and remove litter and debris.
To reduce litter, we should dispose of trash properly. This includes keeping trashcan lids adequately shut, not using our vehicles, particularly trucks, as mobile trashcans, and not thinking the ground or streets are trashcans, just tossing litter wherever. The Great American Cleanup is one of our efforts to fight litter where it happens. The GAC is the way that we as a community clean up after ourselves.
Volunteer efforts can have a powerful effect on our community. Keep America Beautiful cleanup programs help create socially connected, environmentally healthy, and economically sound communities. During the GAC, the value of volunteer work across the nation averages $175 million in measurable benefits annually in Keep America Beautiful communities.
Many national sponsors help make annual GAC events possible. We appreciate our local partners that sponsor our local cleanups. Many of our local cities partner with Keep Liberty Beautiful to provide volunteer appreciation lunches after each citywide cleanup. Also, more than 100 businesses, municipalities, churches, civic organizations, schools and youth groups, as well as individuals, partner with Keep Liberty Beautiful each spring to make our community cleaner and more attractive each year. These volunteer groups have a vision for our community: It should be litter-free, attractive and healthy. These GAC activities continue to move us toward that future.
You or your group can participate in the countywide cleanup on March 19 or schedule a neighborhood or group cleanup on a day that works for you. KLB provides cleanup supplies like garbage bags, safety vests, work gloves, litter reachers and water. We also offer KLB T-shirts to all registered volunteers.
Picking up litter is essential, but the powerful statement that individuals in our community make by participating in these efforts is even more valuable. It makes it clear that in Liberty County, litter is not acceptable. That message will mean more to someone who litters than any “Do Not Litter” sign ever will. These events, coupled with our Adopt Liberty program cleanups, are our most effective teaching tools to fight litter. So, join us in making a statement about who we are as a community.
To register for the Great American Cleanup, go to Sign Up Genius and search klcb@libertycounty ga.com, or use this link: https://bit.ly/KLBGAC2022.
You can make a difference where you live, work and play. Remember, those other 4 million national volunteers will be counting on you, too! For more information, contact Keep Liberty Beautiful at (912) 880-4888 or klcb@libertycountyga.com.