Dr. Karen Bell
Keep Liberty Beautiful
In 2023, Keep America Beautiful celebrated the 25th Annual Great American Cleanup. Affiliates and participating organizations across the country joined together to clean and beautify their communities by removing litter and debris from roadsides, highways, shorelines, and waterways; planting trees, flowers, and gardens; cleaning and restoring nature trails, recreation areas, and playgrounds; and educating communities about waste reduction and recycling.
Great American Cleanup events include:
• Litter and debris removal from roadsides, highways, shorelines, and waterways.
• Clean and restore nature trails, recreation areas, and playgrounds.
• Educate communities about waste reduction and recycling.
• Plant trees, flowers, and gardens.
• Rebuild public spaces in communities impacted by natural disasters.
The 2024 Great American Cleanup in Liberty County is officially started with cleanups from Adopt Liberty and the Hinesville Rotary Club. The Liberty Elementary School has had three Great American Cleanups already and has more planned before school is out in May!
Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s leading environmental education nonprofit will launch the 26th Annual Great American Cleanup this spring. The Great American Cleanup 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, beautify parks, trails, recreation areas, 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 trash can 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 (GAC) is one of our efforts to fight litter where it happens. 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 Great American Cleanup, 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 Great America Cleanup events possible. We appreciate our local partners who sponsor our local cleanups. Many of our local cities partner with Keep Liberty Beautiful to provide volunteer appreciation lunch after each citywide cleanup. Also, over 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 Great American Cleanup activities continue to move us toward that future.
You or your group can participate in the countywide cleanup on March 23 at the Liberty County Community Complex in Midway, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. The next countywide cleanup is on April 27, or schedule a neighborhood or group cleanup on a day that works for you. KLB provides cleanup supplies such as 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 Great American Cleanup, you can call KLB at (912) 880-4888 or email klcb@libertycountyga.com.
You can make a difference where you live, work, and play. Remember, those other four million national volunteers will be counting on you, too! For more information, contact Keep Liberty Beautiful at our website: www.keeplibertybeautiful. org.