2011 Awards of Excellence

Officer Glennis Monday, Campbell County Sheriff's Department

Project: White Bridge Park Clean-Up

For many years prior to 1998, Campbell County's beautiful environment was hidden under a disguise of litter, illegal dumpsites, and trash strewn throughout our county. That is until the day Officer Glennis Monday began his campaign to clean-up Campbell County, and he has continued his hard work until the present day.

In 2009, Glennis single handedly once again took on another challenge: to clean the White Bridge Park, a lakeside/roadside area that for years had been neglected, filled with litter, tires, and partial abandoned dwellings. Officer Monday came together to make a difference with the help of Campbell County Mayor William A. Baird, Girl Scout Troops 207 and 127, and a team of friends and family. The proof is in the totals: 219 bags of garbage recovered, 640 volunteer hours, and 80 volunteers.

The Mayor, Girl Scouts, and team of volunteers were given an educational lecture by Officer Monday about the dangers and impact that litter has on a society as a whole. They were also given instruction on what to do when dangerous litter such as needles and abandoned meth labs are sited, which proved to be helpful information when needles and drug paraphernalia was found during the clean-up.

Clean-Ups, such as the White Bridge Park Project are great opportunities to encourage our young citizens to take pride in their communities and to teach the importance of keeping our environment clean and safe, especially those areas closest to our water supplies.

The White Bridge Park Clean-Up was one of many clean-ups done throughout the year of 2009, using only basic supplies such as garbage bags and gloves. Officer Monday operates on a shoe-string budget. He is somewhat creative when it comes to staying inside the guidelines of his expenditures. In a previous project, he installed "fake" cameras to prevent further littering and it worked. The littering in the area stopped.

This 2009 project was a tremendous success with the guidance of Officer Monday and the support of County Mayor William A. Baird, Girl Scout Troops 201 and 127, and the team of parents and friends who volunteered.

Officer Glennis Monday's years of leadership and dedication has had an enormous impact on Campbell County. Students, past and present recognize him as a teacher. Citizens recognize him as well respected, vital person who has given countless hours to educating individuals of all ages the importance keeping our roadside/lakeside parks and as well as our entire county clean for everyone to enjoy.

Gunner's Glass Recycling, Nashville

Project: Gunner's Glass Recycling

An article in The Tennessean by Nancy Deville on December 21, 2009, made us aware of a six-year old named Gunner who is very concerned about "keeping the earth healthy". Along with the help of his dad, Shawn Sweeney, Gunner has started Gunner's Glass Recycling in his Lockland Springs neighborhood, turning his enthusiasm for recycling into a profitable business.

This is how it works:

• You can sign up by e-mailing service@gunnersrecycling.com.
• Gunner delivers a plastic container with his green "G" logo on the side.
• For a charge of $5 he will pick up your recycled glass twice a month. With the help of Shawn, they dispose of the glass at the Metro East Recycling Center.

Gunner's Glass Recycling business fills a void for his Lockeland Springs neighbors because recycled glass is not collected curbside by Metro Public Works. Nashville residents can recycle by taking glass themselves to designated collection sites. One of his neighbors said that Gunner has made it convenient for him because he doesn't have to make a trip to the recycle drop off site. Other neighbors have referred his services to others, and have said it's worth the $5 to help young Gunner.

So Gunner was invited on January 26, 2010, to speak to the Metro Beautification and Environment Commission, along with Shawn, and share his experience as President and CEO of his glass recycling business. He shared a portfolio he made to show potential customers, and at that time he had 38 customers.

Shawn told the Commission that Gunner was really passionate about recycling, and is known as the recycle police at home making sure all recycling went in the proper place. Gunner's statement in The Tennessean article by Nancy Deville was "I just really like recycling, and it makes me happy. I don't want to see any trash on the ground."

Gunner is very fortunate to have such wonderful parents who want to support his efforts to save the environment and promote recycling. Shawn said he wants to teach Gunner to be responsible and at the same time have the opportunity to make some money. This also gives these two guys the opportunity to spend a few hours together on Sundays. Shawn also said they would like to see other sons and dads start a similar business so other neighborhoods could benefit from this service.

The Metro Beautification & Environment Commission was very impressed by Gunner's presentation, and voted unanimously to give him a certificate for an Award for Excellence in Recycling Leadership for his green business initiative.

During 2010, Gunner's business has expanded to 330 customers and now provides service to East Nashville, Inglewood, Germantown, and 12 South. They now have eight other families working with them to pick up the glass and bring it to their warehouse to be sorted for delivery to the recycling center. A trailer has been purchased to transport the glass. There is one employee that helps with all the business activities. They have formed an LLC and registered all the legal business forms required to make a real business. The business has now transformed from a father/son operation to a real family business.

Gunner had a booth at the Nashville Earth Day Festival in April. It has been a busy and profitable ten months. He has expanded service to several local businesses to reach out to commercial customers.

Gunner has also been asked by a company named Living Well to make an interactive game for kids at their conference in Nashville April 2011.

At a recent MBEC meeting, one of the commissioners had received an email about Gunner's Glass Recycling and asked that he help spread the word that the plan was to expand this service to his neighborhood of Sylvan Park in December for a charge of $6.

Gunner's Glass Recycling began with 38 customers. It has now increased to 330. This service has encouraged participation in glass recycling, and keeping glass out of the landfill. This is an increase of 868.42 percent.

A YouTube video profiling Gunner’s Glass Recycling can be viewed at http://theeastsidestory.com/stories.php.

Keep Knoxville Beautiful

Project: Breakfast with the Goats

Keep Knoxville Beautiful was extremely fortunate to receive a grant from the UPS Foundation/Keep America Beautiful to introduce goats to Knoxville to help in the management of Kudzu, nature's silent killer in the fall of 2009. This ivy-like parasitic plant was introduced to the area in the first half of the 20th century by farmers seeking to manage soil erosion and quickly became an invasive species that has effectively suffocated the life out of many populations of native species. Keep Knoxville Beautiful piloted this program as a method to effectively manage kudzu growth using goats-a method that is clean, green, and will showcase innovative, green problem solving in the Knoxville community.

Despite the best efforts of many, kudzu has proven nearly impossible to control. It needs minimal soil depth for root growth, and in temperate climates, it can grow up to a foot each day. To completely kill it, new kudzu growth must be continuously cut off. Currently the City of Knoxville applies herbicide annually, which is not adequate to eradicate Kudzu from area parks, right-of-way, and green spaces, but intended only to abate uncontrolled growth. At the same time, the community is currently experiencing a high return to outdoor recreation, and as nature becomes an increasingly important part of peoples' lives, kudzu detracts from a park's ability to connect people with the natural world. As the community members become more sensitive to the effects of chemicals on humans and the natural environment, the traditional method of kudzu control is quickly becoming unsatisfactory.

Keep Knoxville Beautiful began working with the City of Knoxville to develop permitting and code changes needed to implement a goat management program. This process greatly delayed our launch of the program as it took ten months to get past the legal barriers that existed. Prior to the first City Council meeting, Keep Knoxville Beautiful partnered with the Knoxville Botanical Garden, which was zoned agriculture, and Natural Land Clearing to demonstrate how the program would work. The goats were brought to town for three days, and a Breakfast with the Goats was planned so that city and county officials could see first-hand the effectiveness and ease of using the goats for this project.

The issue came before City Council on a day that was heavily weighted in livestock issues. Keep Knoxville Beautiful had taken precautions and provided City Council with a presentation, as well as providing the contractor to answer any questions, three weeks prior to it coming to a vote. At the end of June, Keep Knoxville Beautiful was finally given the green light to proceed with the program in public areas. After months of delay, the goats were released in three different locations, and in total ate more than 11 acres of kudzu. In two of the three sites, there is a need for a repeated treatment, but one site is still clear after two months. The City is looking at adding it to the budget next year.

Keep Bristol Beautiful

Project: A Green Place to Live

Description:

• Keep Bristol Beautiful (KBB) worked with a local marketing firm to develop a new logo and PowerPoint presentation on litter prevention, recycling, and greening. Presentations were made throughout the community at various functions, including the Chamber of Commerce First Friday Business Briefing, civic club meetings, and Chamber Board meeting.
• KBB partners with the local NBC Affiliate WCYB to provide information on community events on the News @ Noon show. WCYB serves 17 counties and over 335,000 television households.
• KBB events information is included in the Chamber's "Weekly Email Update" (readership approximately 1,600).
• KBB utilizes Social Media (Facebook & Twitter) to promote the KAB message.
• KBB utilizes the "Chamber Voice"-a full page ad in the Sunday edition of the Bristol Herald Courier to advertise events (readership approximately 100,000).
• Through our partnership with PowerTalk Radio we have a 60 second spot available each week to promote events and issues to the community.
• KBB has created and distributed thousands of flyers and posters to promote the KAB message.
• KBB utilizes the Chamber's Website to promote KBB events.
• KBB works with regional partners to host the annual East Tennessee Environmental Conference. The conference annually averages an attendance of 300 people annually.
• KBB produces a four color brochure with litter and recycling information that is distributed to all new comers to the area. The brochures contain recycling locations and are available at the Chamber and other venues throughout the community. More than 2000 brochures have been distributed to the community.

Community Need: A clean, beautiful community encourages tourism, economic growth, and increases real estate value. The needs addressed by the project are community awareness about the affects of littering and the importance of recycling. Ads about recycling enable citizens to see the challenges and evaluate their own actions. The KBB program exceeds normal standards.

Resources: TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations provided in kind donations to the projects. KBB is fortunate to have good working relationships with the newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations in the Tri-cities area.

Impact: PSAs and print ads with strong messages about the effects of littering and the importance of recycling to conserve our natural resources reached more than 300,000 residents of the Tri-Cities area. Bristol radio stations donated $174,000 of free air time for litter and recycling PSAs. The Bristol Herald Courier donated more than $12,000 in print ads and local TV stations donated $125,000 in free air time.

Keep Blount Beautiful

Description: Keep Blount Beautiful (KBB) is an award winning 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization which started in 1992, located in the Foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.

KBB has an extensive and well known education program. We educate children and adults of all ages year round, although our main focus throughout the years have been K-6. The KBB education goal has been for "every student to visit our local landfill before they reach the sixth grade". We have been achieving this goal since 2004. KBB has had to change the goal stating "reaching every student before the 6th grade with school presentations or landfill tours" since most field trips have been cut due to recent school funding issues.

Due to our past history, KBB has wonderful relationships with the schools and teachers. We work through the teachers themselves to promote all of our programs, by attending school employee fairs & information emails. KBB has every teacher with the City of Maryville/City of Alcoa/Blount County on our email list.

During fall 2010, we partnered with the new Blount County "Bee-Green" program and Alcoa Inc. to visit each second grade classroom. KBB explained the life cycle of an aluminum can with the props provided by Alcoa Inc.

Here are the programs we offer, all free of charge to everyone:

Landfill Learning Center Tour: Alcoa/Maryville/Blount County Landfill contracts KBB for landfill tours, $38,500; this is our main funding source.

• 2 hour landfill tour

1. Learn how a landfill runs (tipping fee/scale house)
2. How long our landfill will last & what will we do when it's full
3. Tour the recycling center: computers, tires, appliances & other basic recycling
4. Closed cell & current open cell
5. Methane gas/leachate explanation

• Waste-Free Lunch & Activities

6. Kids bring their own "waste-free" lunch, which is sorted into trash/compost/recycling
7. Fred the Fish storm water pollution presentation
8. Great Trash pickup (addresses litter), Recycling Relay, and Compost Dissection

• Each child is sent home with KBB/Stop Litter information, environmental coloring book provided by a grant from Wal-Mart, pencil, GAC stickers
• Teachers are provided a re-usable shopping bag, poster for school and tour survey

KBB lost their landfill learning center pavilion during fall 2009. We have maintained the integrity of the program, without our mainstay, by holding lunch and activities at donated park pavilions or on school property.

• School Presentations: Program varies depending on school/club need.
• Papermaking: Learn paper recycling process (small classroom style only)
• Fred the Fish: Storm water pollution presentation (younger students)
• Enviroscape: Storm water pollution presentation (older students)
• Reducing/Reusing/Recycling Presentation
• Life Cycle of an Aluminum Can: provided by Alcoa Inc
• The Day the Trash Came Out to Play book (younger students read the book; older students act out the story with materials provided by KBB)
• Ladybug Mascot

Community: This program has been the main goal of KBB. We have been educating K-6 since we first became an affiliate in 1992. Teacher/scouts/community groups rely on our program to teach environmental awareness.

2008-2009: 1,185 students
2009-2010: 1,887 students 
Since July 2010: 1,554 students

Keep Williamson Beautiful

Williamson County Government provides $50,000 of funds derived from the sale of recyclables to "School Merit Program". Each school has a volunteer representative titled School's Environmental Coordinator. This program provides environmental conscious schools a means of receiving extra funding. The funds are from the recycling drop-off site in the area of their school.

Therefore, the more recyclables the families drop off at that center the more funds become available and the more environmental conscious the school. These funds can only be spent on promoting environmental education, or the purchase of environmentally friendly products.

ENVIRONMENTAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS are given to the schools with the highest merits for the entire school year at Keep Williamson Beautiful's (KWB) Volunteer Recognition each year.

Merit Points are determined by the following:

RECYCLING

• 20 points> paper, plastic, aluminum & metal cans, and cardboard recycling
• 20 points.> Swap or Reuse Sales

PLANNED ORGANIZED ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS

• 30 points> Litter-Free event
• 30 points> Litter Free School Zones

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

• 5 points> Earned for each promotion on KWB environmental events e.g. recycling, litter prevention/education
• 20 points > classroom presentation by KWB

VOLUNTEER PARTICIPATION

• 30 points> environmental project conducted by volunteers

REPORTING
In order to receive funds the school must:

• Obtain 300 points per school year
• Complete Reports on- time
• E-mail photos

KWB's assistance is available to implement a successful environmental program. The importance for every school to have an effective environmental program to educate students on conserving and protecting our natural resources, as well as decreasing disposal costs is stressed. The School Environmental Coordinators acts as ambassadors of KWB and make a difference in the environmental insight of future generations at home and at school.

In order to promote education to high school students, KWB created a presentation for ecology classes. KWB kept the students attention by covering interesting topics that apply to their curriculum. The PowerPoint was created from the following student's questions:

Where do pieces of garbage thrown away at Williamson County Schools and homes go?

1. Who is responsible for doing this?
2. What can be done about road side litter?
3. How did the county become responsible for our trash?
4. Will we have curbside recycling in the future?
5. Where and how can hazardous material be disposed?
6. How big of a problem is pollution and solid waste in the county?
7. Can recycling program and centers be expanded?
8. Does solid waste contribute to other environmental problems?

The presentations are timed for each class period. Time is allowed for questions from the students as well as from the teachers.

Yearly, KWB presents to all seven high schools. At some high schools we present to all the ecology classes, and we present to the environmental clubs at the others.

Many of the teachers used the questions as a test that they would complete as we were presenting. This insured that the students were paying attention.

Keep Blount Beautiful

During the Great American Cleanup™, Keep Blount Beautiful  (KBB) holds several events and programs which encompass all areas within our county to include: kids of all ages, adults, businesses, organizations and government. KBB's efforts touch all areas of the community, as we hold cleanups, recycling bin giveaways, environmental education for residents, and tree giveaways. Below are our programs from 2009 & 2010.

2009

• River Rescue April 4 Partnered with Ijams Nature Center & the Fort Loudon Lake Association for this river/lake clean-up event. Lunch was free for volunteers. 215 volunteers cleaned up 2,100 Ibs of litter. Media: Newspaper
• Alcoa Inc. Recycling Bin Giveaway April 24 KBB and Alcoa Inc. gave away 168 FREE recycling bins to residents. Event ran from 5:30pm-7:30pm. Media: Newspaper
• Earth Round Up April 25 Starting off as "Little River Awareness Day" in 1990 this is the longest running clean-up event in our county and Blount County's Premier Earth Day event. The event is a partnership between the chamber, city, county, numerous businesses, Maryville College, Pepsi and several non-profits. It consists of a morning clean-up held by KBB and the Little River Watershed Association, as well as an evening celebration. The evening event consists of free dinner for all volunteers donated by US Foodservice, environmental booths, silent auction to benefit KBB and LWRA, music, environmental children's area, rain barrel sale and more! The event is free to attend. 2009 hosted 350 clean up volunteers/collected 6,300 Ibs of litter. Evening event hosted over 800 attendees. Media: Extensive Newspaper/TV

2010

• "Litter Law Forum Luncheon" March 4 Attendees included the County/City Mayors, elected officials, Blount County Sheriff, City of Maryville and Alcoa Police Chief, judges, DA, corporation officials, KBB Board and Keep Tennessee Beautiful staff. Speakers were Judge Larry Potter and Litter Officer Glennis Monday. 2007 Litter Laws were introduced to county officials and ways to use them. Media: Newspaper
• Tree Giveaway March 30 Steve Clark &Associates donated 100,000 trees to counties across Tennessee to promote environmental awareness through reforestation. KBB and the UT Blount County Extension office delivered over 1000 FREE trees to schools. Some trees were sent home with students while others planted at the schools. Following up with teachers, at least 90% of the trees planted at the schools have survived. Media: Newspaper article
• River Rescue April 10: KBB partnered with Ijams Nature Center for this river/lake clean-up event. 51 volunteers collected 54 bags of litter. (Fort Loudon Lake Association decided to change their area of focus this year) Media: Newspaper
• Alcoa Inc. Recycling Bin Giveaway April 15 KBB and Alcoa Inc. gave away 168 FREE recycling bins to residents. Event scheduled to run 5pm-7pm, but bins were gone in less than 30 minutes! Media: Newspaper
• Earth Round Up April 24: Same event as described in 2009. 2472 volunteers cleaned up over 7,400 Ibs of litter. Chamber chaired evening event, causing HUGE increase in volunteerism since KBB could focus, recruit, and organize volunteers as the chair of the clean-up. KBB also fed volunteers who attended the celebration. 1,000 attended evening event. Voted as one of the top 5 Blount County events in 2010! Media: Extensive Newspaper/TV

Keep Williamson Beautiful

Community Need: In an effort to improve the beauty of Williamson County and to educate the citizens as to what they could do to help make the county more sustainable, Keep Williamson Beautiful (KWB) put together a class series entitled Environmental Leader Program. The goal of the classes is "To increase awareness of the beauty of Williamson County and Tennessee, to promote keeping that beauty intact by stopping litter and encouraging recycling, and to get more people involved."

Description: The organizing group consisted of four people. Detailed planning started about a year before. An estimated 320 hours was involved.

Classes were held weekly for six weeks in the spring, with two speakers each week, allowing one hour for each presentation. Each week's class was also taped and aired on local cable TV station for all citizens in county to view. If a student could not attend they were asked to watch a video of the presentation.

Studies included recycling, energy resources, climate changes, hazardous waste, shopping green, green building, composting, the county landfill, natural resources, air and water quality, explanation of Keep Williamson Beautiful, and transportation. A discussion about promoting "green" to children and a final carbon footprint for each attendee was taken to see how change was taking place. At the end of the classes, each student would volunteer ten hours in a beautification event, cleanup project, litter prevention, and/or waste reduction project in the county. Each student received study CD, a recycling bag filled with items to carry out the KWB mission, a lapel pin, and a corn plastic mug. 

Resources: The cost of $35 was passed to the participants in hopes that would cover the cost. Refreshments were served each week, purchasing items that were made in Tennessee or had the least transportation cost. The meal presentation used all reusable items, so there was little "waste"-which was another opportunity to educate on waste reduction. Each attendee was given a reusable beverage container which they had to bring each week to use as their drink ware. Additional money for supplies was from the Keep Williamson Beautiful budget.

Impact: Thirty two attend our first class, totaling 384 hours in education. At least 20 of the students have donated 400 hours to events sponsored by KWB, including the Bloom 'n' Garden show by passing out free trees and information, litter free events, volunteering to answer questions at a KWB booth at events and festivals, helping at a Shred Day or Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day events, and reading to second graders for the Environmental Reading Program. These are all events held during the Great American Cleanup. Most importantly, the classes have bonded individuals of same interest together for a good cause; taking care of our environment and making a better tomorrow for our children.

Metro Beautification Commission

The 2010 Great American Cleanup Kick-off for Nashville-Davidson County took place on March 16, 2010 at the Metro Council meeting with Veronica Frazier, Executive Director, and staff and Commission members present. Councilman Bo Mitchell, District 35, read Resolution No. RS2010-1136 recognizing March, April, and May 2010 as “Great American Cleanup Months” in Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. All volunteers were encouraged to participate, and we were on our way to another successful Great American Cleanup in 2010. The Metro Beautification and Environment Commission had received our in-kind donations from Keep America Beautiful and Keep Tennessee Beautiful. With Glad trash bags, Nestles Water, Purell hand sanitizer and newly purchased gloves, we were ready to clean up Nashville!

At the same time the following message was going out to all public and private schools: 
Time to Plan Ahead for Those Spring Clean-Up Projects! All schools in Davidson County are invited to join the Great American Cleanup, which starts March 1st, and cleanup the litter around their school campus. Metro Beautification provides trash bags and incentive gifts for all students involved. Visit Metro’s website to Register for the Ring Around the School cleanup, Or call the Metro Beautification Office at 862-8418. Remember: Brown carts are for household trash and garbage. Green carts are for recyclable materials.

Nashville-Davidson County was off to a great start in the month of March with schools, churches, commissioners, neighborhood associations, and volunteer groups, such as Friends of Warner Parks and Madison-Rivergate Chamber of Commerce, conducting roadside and bulk item cleanups, removing illegal signs, cleaning school campuses, and park lands.

Metro Beautification held the Nashville Arbor Day Ceremony on March 25, 2010, in Centennial Park planting seven trees in memory or honor of individuals or organizations in the community: Alice Ann Barge, a Nashville Tree Foundation member and Metro Tree Advisory Committee member who won the Award for Urban Forestry Excellence; Nashville was honored as a Tree City USA for the 15th year; Nashville Electric Service was presented the Tree Line City USA Utility designation; the George H. Cate Jr. Award was presented to Costco-West Nashville for preservation and proper protection of pre-existing quality trees on site and continuing maintenance; and there were three student essay winners from Nashville schools for the theme: My Favorite Tree.

Metro Beautification & Environment Commission, Metro Tree Advisory Committee, and Friends of Beautification volunteered at the April 17 Nashville Earth Day Festival booth, where they promoted litter prevention, discussed community greening, talked trees, promoted recycling and composting, and held a Household Hazardous Waste drop off collecting CFL bulbs and mercury thermometers. Partnering with TDEC, mercury thermometers were swapped for a new digital. The Trash Art Contest winners were given their awards at this event.

March and April were great months, with neighborhood roadside and bulk item cleanups, tree plantings, beautification projects, campus cleanups, and information booths at festivals—then the rains came and the flooding. Three major cleanups were canceled, one being a large water cleanup at Percy Priest Lake. Metro Public Works put all available employees on standby, including MBEC staff. Billy Lynch, executive director, and his staff first assessed damage of 125 roads which were closed and repaired within two weeks. Sites were cleared with FEMA and TDEC, contracts prepared and signed with SRS and DRC, and contractors were placed into routes, along with Metro Public Works trucks, and three staging sites were prepared. Then the real work began with Metro Public Works crews, contractors, community service workers, and volunteers working together.

Our warehouse lost a lot of newly purchased KAB materials for our education programs, gloves, and donated Glad trash bags and Nestles water from our National sponsors. A call to Keep Tennessee Beautiful and Keep America Beautiful brought a donation of 7,872 Glad trash bags which were quickly distributed among the Metro Disaster Information Centers organized at five community center sites. The Arthouse Gardens in East Nashville set up a distribution center for their residents to get supplies as they began to help each other clean up from the flood. Other materials donated for the volunteers were MBEC t-shirts, gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer.

Metro Beautification directly partnered and continued to organize cleanups with the following groups: Hands On Nashville Warehouse, Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood Association, 12South Neighborhood Group, Haynes Manor Neighborhood Association with Commissioner Richard Mayberry, Jeff Zuehlke with the 6th Avenue North Neighborhood Group in North Nashville, Councilman Darren Jernigan and the Old Hickory Community Center, Councilwoman Vivian Wilhoitte and the Antioch Community, Councilwoman Karen Bennett in Inglewood, Councilman Charlie Tygard in Belleve, Beech Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Bordeaux, River Plantation, Riverwalk and Boone Trace Homeowners in Bellevue, Parkwood Neighborhood Association in Northeast Nashville, Metro Parks Greenways & Ball Park Cleanup in Shelby Park, Cross Point Community Church Flood Cleanup in Bellevue with Councilman Bo Mitchell, and Hermitage Church of Christ – Hermitage/Donelson.

This will be the Great American Cleanup we will never forget. The community need was met by government agencies, businesses, non-profits, organizations, neighborhood groups, and more importantly, by individuals who wanted to volunteer to help those in need. Everyone combined resources and formed partnerships.

Metro Beautification and Public Works logged the following totals during the May flood event:

• 33,198 trash bags
• 25,000 t-shirts
• 25,000 gloves
• 14,436 volunteers
• 76,051 volunteer hours
• 60 Cleanup Projects

2010 Great American Cleanup Results

Events held: 185 
# of volunteers: 24,845 
# of volunteer hours: 95,406 
# of participants: 2,147 
# of community service or court ordered workers: 897 
# of communities involved: 106 
# of community groups: 78 
# of pounds of litter, debris and bulky waste cleaned up: 762,805 
# of miles/streets/roads cleaned & beautified: 156 
# of playgrounds/community recreation areas built, cleaned, restored or improved: 1 
# of miles of rivers, lakes, shorelines cleaned: 25 
lbs. of plastic bottles collected for recycling: 11,312 
lbs. of glass collected for recycling: 1,767 
lbs. of aluminum and steel collected for recycling: 1,777 
lbs. of paper/newspaper collected for recycling: 54,094 
# of tires collected for recycling: 448 
# of batteries collected for recycling: 3,200 
lbs. of electronics collected for recycling: 43,799 
# of garden, landscape, xeriscape and green space areas created or improved: 20 
# of edible community gardens planted/replanted: 1 
# of trees planted: 6,607 
# of flowers and bulbs planted: 42,750 
# of education workshops/community outreach presentations: 80 
# of adults in attendance: 579 
# of children in attendance: 3,944 
# of general awareness events held (litter free events, booths at events, fairs, festivals, etc.): 35 
# of people in community audience: 224,952

Keep Blount Beautiful

Description: Keep Blount Beautiful (KBB) held their first ARD event on November 7, 2009, from 10 am-1 pm. The event offered on-site recycling, free Alcoa Inc. recycling bins to the first 120 attendees, recycled art/crafts booths, recycling informational booths, and door prizes. The event was sponsored by Alcoa Inc., Waste Not Want Not Thrift Shop, and Spectra Recycling.

Recycling on site:

• Used clean clothing for distribution to the Maryville needy (RIO Church) - collected 500lbs
• Computers/electronics for a fee of 50¢ a pound (Spectra Recycling) - collected 2,400 Ibs
• Used medical equipment (Vine International) - collected 10 various items
• License plates (The License Plate Man) - collected 42
• Hearing aids (The Speech and Hearing Foundation) - 1 collected
• Eyeglasses (Lions Club) - 5 collected
• Cell phones (KBB) - 15 collected
• Used clean coats (Coats for the Community) - 85 collected
• Aluminum cans (Blount County Rescue Squad) - 15 Ibs.

Residents registered to win prizes when they recycled the items above. The more they recycled the more times they could enter to win. Prizes included: license plate dogs, gift certificates, can crushers, green cleaning gift basket, Brita water filter pitcher, reusable water bottles, and more. Drawings were held every 30 minutes. Over 200 attended, and 32 people volunteered.

Budget: $200 in order to purchase door prizes, donated by Waste Not Want Not. This event did not cost KBB anything but time and effort. City of Maryville donated pavilion/parking lot space.

Media: The Daily Times & Blount Today newspapers listed the event free of charge, plus The Daily Times featured follow-up photos in the paper. The event was added to all local TV and community event calendars, and sent out to the KBB email list, which includes 1,000 residents. KBB also utilized the ARD posters by posting them around town.

Several individuals within the community approached KBB and asked about event. Little did they know event planning was already in progress. KBB board member, Cathie Golden, chaired the event and did a tremendous job. Residents were happy to see a new environmental event in the fall, in order for us to address environmental needs all year long. Maryville residents are not interested in traveling to Knoxville for events, and love to have their own "homegrown" events.

Recycling is a confusion in our county. We are only one of two counties in the state without convenience centers. The City of Maryville has two recycling centers, but they are currently trying to limit that only to city residents. Residents call and email daily asking how and where to recycle. This event welcomed individuals to ask these questions face to face, and to also recycle items that are normally hard to find outlets for.

America Recycles Day 2010
Keep Blount Beautiful held their 2010 event on November 13, 2010, from 10am-2pm. It was sponsored by Alcoa Inc. and Waste Not Want Not Thrift Shop. Due to door prize donations, KBB did not need to ask for sponsorship funds this year. Click here to view the press release for their 2010 event. 

Obey River Grotto

Description: The Obey River Grotto of the National Speleological Society has been caving in the Obey River Gorge for many years. State Highway 85 crosses the Obey River and has been grossly littered for decades, especially at the bridge and surrounding pull-offs. The Grotto decided to start the project of cleaning up the gorge and adopted the two mile stretch on the east and west sides of the bridge. On January 10,2009, six people, including Marc Smith, Angela Rector, Jeff Garrett, Brent Smith, Danielle Poore, and Tony Snider worked at this clean-up, as well as clean-ups on March 21,2009, August 15,2009, January 23,2010, and May 8,2010. Approximately 125 bags of trash and numerous other items not bagged have been collected during 20 hours worked.

The Grotto expanded the Project beyond the two mile stretch of Highway 85. One big problem was the Obey River itself. The pull-offs around the bridge and the river bed under the bridge had been used as a local dump. Nine people, Jeff Garrett, Marc Smith, Angela Rector, Brent Smith, Mike Russell, Wayne Neff, Alex Neff, Jarius Hines, and Cedar Snider, worked to remove all the trash in two trips. These trips together totaled ten to fifteen hours, and the use of three trucks and one trailer to take it all to the local recycle center.

Community Need: This Project is extremely important to keep pollutants out of the Obey River and the recreation areas downstream, keeping our water clean, and promote tourism in the areas. 

Resources: The Grotto's Adopt-a-highway clean-ups were self funded, with the state providing the trash bags, safety vests, and signs. After picking up the trash, we placed our Adopt-a-highway signs at the spot. The two Bridge pull-off/River clean-ups were also totally self sufficient, using our own equipment.

Impact: The drive on Highway 85 is definitely much different now from that of two years prior. Now the area near the Obey River is trash free, Tennessee beauty at its finest. The Obey River, which feeds Dale Hollow Lake, a major tourist attraction, is not being polluted by all the trash that was there. The amount of trash deposited has steadily decreased since the Clean-Up Project began, and will hopefully continue to decrease as our future clean-ups take place. The Obey River Gorge is a beautiful, natural place that deserves our help to protect it.

Click here to view the Obey River Grotto website.

Keep Monroe County Beautiful

Description: Keep Monroe County Beautiful partnered with the Ranger Station at the Cherokee National Forest to do a road side and river clean up on a Scenic Byway. This clean up educated volunteers on the importance of keeping a natural habitat clean - the way god intended it to be. Each year during the Great American Clean up, Keep Monroe County Beautiful assists the ranger station in recruiting volunteers to do its annual Tellico River clean up.

Community Needs: The community needs to be aware of the importance of this vital clean up because the Cherahala Skyway is an important part tourism in our county. Each year the scenic by way of the Cherahala Skyway attracts more than 5,000 visitors; therefore, keeping it clean is vital to the county. During the Great American Cleanup 136 volunteers covered 30 miles of roadway along the river to collect 3,500 pounds of litter. The volunteers were from a variety of areas, including the Tellico Plains Junior High School TSAP Club students, Wal-Mart employees, Keep Monroe County Executive Coordinator, Spouse of Coordinator, members of the Boys and Girls Club and various other groups that attend the annual Tellico River Clean up at the Ranger Station.

Resources: The Ranger Station and Keep Monroe County Beautiful provided the necessary resources for the cleanup, i.e. grabbers, gloves, bags and vests. A partnership has been established with the Cherokee National Forest Ranger District as well as with Wal-Mart and the Tellico Plains Junior High TSAP students to do clean ups several times during the year on the Skyway. Flyers were posted within the county on this clean up and also the local media covered the event.

Impact: As a result of this project, this area had a 32% decrease in litter in 2010 with an average of 1.68 as opposed to a 2.0 average in 2009. The overall benefit for the county is a beautiful scenic by way that is litter free. This alone is priceless to the tourists as well as the population of the county. The Cherokee Forest is nature at its best for everyone to enjoy -litter free.

Click here to view a letter Keep America Beautiful President Matt McKenna wrote to Nadine Mazienis with regards to the Tellico River Cleanup.

Mary Lou Horner, Knoxville

Keep Knoxville Beautiful (KKB) respectfully nominated Mary Lou Horner for the Edith Heller Award. She is the self touted "grandmother" of KKB as she was on the committee that founded and first organized the Greater Knoxville Beautification Board, which has since become KKB. Ms. Horner is a dynamic individual who has been actively promoting a cleaner, greener, more beautiful community since 1978. Even though she is in her 80s, she currently maintains a hectic schedule of public, civic, and political meetings welcoming the opportunity to promote litter prevention, to organize a cleanup, or to become actively engaged in a beautification effort in the city or along the roadway.

In 1978, it was announced by the local leaders that Knox County would be host to numerous guests from cities worldwide to attend the World's Fair in Knoxville in 1982. This news "lit a spark" with Horner and immediately she initiated the plan that if Knoxville was having company, the area needed to "clean house." The Greater Knoxville Beautification Board was born due to her aggressive and skillful planning in gathering citizens and businesses in a cooperative effort to make Knoxville cleaner and greener. With her energy and enthusiasm she has continued to function in a leadership role from its birth to the present date constantly seeking funding for projects and directing programs to involve personalities of all ages-from youth to senior citizens. The name of Mary Lou Horner is synonymous with litter prevention, beautification, and education efforts. Her reaching out to citizens by example in organizing, advertising, and participating in routine cleanup projects, recycling demonstrations, and tree plantings has been influential in community response.

Mary Lou Horner's accomplishments in the Keep America Beautiful system are numerous. Mary Lou Horner assisted the City of Knoxville's Judge John R. Rosson in becoming Tennessee's second Environmental Court Judge in 1988, and happily contributed to the organization of Litter Offender classes. Ms. Horner was instrumental in the passage of the May 8, 1996, littering ordinance passed by Knox County Commission and in creating a Knox County Environmental Court with Judge Tony W. Stansberry.

Ms. Horner has been actively involved in making sure events become litter free. She organized the first "Trash Bash" at the popular Calhoun's Restaurant on the Tennessee River as a fundraiser. She initiated the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program in conjunction with the American Cancer Society. In addition, Ms. Horner has been involved in major creek cleanup projects, partnering with UT Athletics to support cleanup and beautification projects, and assisted in planning and initiating the ISPY on Litter Program. Mary Lou has assisted in the initiation of the Christmas Tree Recycling Program and secured the donation of tree chipping services which has resulted in thousands of trees being mulched.

No person better epitomizes a lifetime of service to the Keep Tennessee Beautiful system than Mary Lou Horner. She is the backbone to our organization and a visionary for what Knoxville/Knox County can be.

Comcast Cares, Knoxville

In 2009, Comcast Cable approached Keep Knoxville Beautiful (KKB) about partnering with our organization for their annual Comcast Cares Day. KKB had partnered with a group of AmeriCorps that were creating a Community Nourishment Garden, but were falling short on hands and money. Comcast agreed to fund and install a rain garden and a butterfly garden at the site for the Community Nourishment Garden. This garden would serve to benefit Bridge, the refugee resettlement agency for East Tennessee. 

The Community Nourishment Garden is a philanthropic community garden located in the popular central location of Tyson Park, along the Third Creek Greenway. The project provides to its participants the opportunity to form new bonds within their community, while working to provide fresh, healthy produce to fellow community members who need it. The completed garden has raised beds that used repurposed building materials as an example of responsible resource reduction and reuse. There was an extensive rain barrel catchment system set up to collect the water for irrigation and to serve as a model of responsible resource use. Edible landscape was used to provide beauty, productivity, and sustainability. Compost was used to ensure that organic waste generated in the garden will re-energize nutrients into the soil.

Since the garden relies on volunteer involvement for maintenance and further growth, a design that would be easy and enjoyable to maintain was developed. This design included a variety of edible plants that will be productive at different points in the year: Paw Paw trees, apple trees, berries, and hardy herbs and vegetables. The rain garden (approximately 530 sq ft in size) contained grasses and flowers useful for filtering ground water. The butterfly garden (approximately 135 sq ft in size) included flowers and shrubs to attract pollinators needed to make the entire garden productive. Items such as mulch, gravel, and stones were also added to this area. 

Support from the City of Knoxville, the Knox County Community Action Committee and its affiliated AmeriCorps program, the Knoxville Greenways Coalition, KKB, and various other groups helped to turn this project from a dream into reality. 

The budget for our portion of the Community Nourishment Garden was $1,200. The land was donated for use by the City Parks and Recreation Department. The city also used a bulldozer to break the ground and to create the initial paths and garden areas. The cost of the garden was minimized by the gracious donation of plants and materials from area nurseries and companies. 

Around 100 Comcast employees and volunteers spent most of April 22, 2010, working on the garden. Area volunteers donated over 400 hours, in addition to the 600 hours that were given by the employees at Comcast. 

The impact of the Community Nourishment Garden is that there is publicly accessible healthy food growing for the community. While it initially began as a way to assist refugees as they settle in East Tennessee, it is actually benefitting many more local citizens as our economy continues to struggle.

Irma Tabor, Memphis

It is an honor to nominate Ms. Irma Tabor, President, Handy Holiday Community Club, for the Community Volunteer of the Year. Ms. Tabor personifies her motto "Neighbor Helping Neighbor".

Ms. Tabor has worked tirelessly to beautify the unkempt areas in the Handy Holiday Community. She conducts a weekly cleanup, whether by herself or with the help of her neighbors. She has been instrumental in planting over 2,000 tulip bulbs and placing Crepe Myrtles at each intersection between Elvis Presley Blvd. and McRae and at various other spots around the Alcy-Elvis Presley intersection.

Her reach is far and wide into the entire Memphis Community. She has organized and supervised such groups as:

2008
September - Modern Distinctive Ladies
October - University of Memphis Emerging Leaders and Benjamin Hooks Job Corps

2009
March - Xavier University Gospel Choir, Cincinnati, Ohio
May - Handy Holiday Community Club and Alcy Ball Community Church
July - Power Summer Day Camp

2010
February - Firefighters Community Service Program

These volunteers pick up litter, cut grass, and tear out trees, vines and old shrubs from city streets, vacant lots and neighborhood parks. Approximately 300 volunteers participate per year in community cleanups and beautification projects. Memphis City Beautiful has loaned tools and provided bags and gloves for many of these projects, as well as provided volunteers for some of these activities.

Ms. Tabor does not stop with cleanups and beautification. There is an educational component as well. She teaches the younger children that attend the Power Summer Day Camp how to plant zinnias and then invites them back to check on the progress of the garden.

She has enlisted her local fire station to water her plants though out the neighborhood on a weekly basis, and this year that same fire station cut weeds and planted Yucca plants and pansies in the neighborhood.

She has cleared another lot and planted a community garden. It's open to any member of the Handy Holiday Community. All she asks of her neighbors is when they pick the crops they leave her with seeds to plant next year.

In addition to being President of the Handy Holiday Community Club, Ms. Tabor is currently:

• Alcy Ball Neighborhood Association Board Member
• Crossing Guard for two schools
• Mother Board and Deacon for her church (44 years)
• Teaches Sunday School
• Teaches sewing to young ladies in order to help them learn a trade
• Drives older people to church
• Conducts one neighborhood cleanup per month (10 years)
• Memphis Police Department Police Ambassador
• Leadership Memphis Grassroots Fall 2009

She has fostered 16 children, five "real" children, 23 grandchildren and three great grandchildren with a new one on the way. She is truly an inspiration to everyone with whom she comes in contact.

How can she accomplish all of this? Ms. Tabor had open heart surgery in January of 1999. As she was recuperating, she had a vision to make her neighborhood a "lily of the valley" and all she does is keep her eye on the vision ... "It's easy".

Joanne Maskew, Cleveland/Bradley KAB System

1. Describe why the organization or individual is an "environmental hero."
When anyone in our community thinks about the environment our executive director, Joanne Maskew, is the first person that comes to mind.

What leadership qualities are exhibited that inspire others to participate to make their communities better?
Ms. Maskew began her tenure in this position in 2000, with a passion for a job in which one person can make a difference. She has been active in this program since 1993. Because of her determination, she has gone against all odds and brought the Environmental Docket to our region, as well as implemented the Coalition for Community Improvement Committee. Ms. Maskew has increased awareness through KAB's annual membership drive, working with other nonprofits, businesses, educators, local officials, law enforcement agencies, and local media outlets to explore opportunities to increase awareness.

2. What was the community problem or need that this nominee addressed?
The local KAB had not had a leader for six months. The Board of Directors was meeting, but where undecided as to what type of leader the program needed.

3. Were there obstacles to overcome?
When an environmental program is non-existent in a community, it mirrors a lack of leadership. There were no environmental activities or educational programs while trash, debris, and illegal dump sites were taking over the community.

What leadership traits were exhibited?
Ms. Maskew was and continues to be a self starter. She was able to be productive not only in the office, but managed the Ocoee Region Nature Center and the county's Recycle Facilities. She was able to obtain volunteers to work the nature center, as well as hire a part-time employee for the recycle facilities. She began by organizing programs and events to see how they could become much more efficient. Joanne met with local government officials, media representatives, various city and county department heads, chamber leaders, law enforcement personnel, and educators to work together on a commitment to improve the environmental quality of the area.

4. How did this nominee use his/her time, talent and treasurers to better the community?
Throughout the past 10 years Ms. Maskew has diversified board members and expanded committees to include the Coalition for Community Improvement Committee, a volunteer organization which empowers neighborhoods to be proactive instead of dependent on others for assistance. Ms. Maskew worked relentlessly for five years, never giving up on bringing the Environmental Docket/Court to Cleveland/Bradley County. She has been persistent in seeking partnerships for various education programs and events. KAB's membership drive since has increased by 50 percent.

5. Staff nominations for the Martin L. Kennedy awards should illustrate how the individual shows leadership and goes beyond his/her job description to involve citizens in environmental improvement.
Joanne Maskew is a leader in all aspects of her job. When an idea is born, she tenaciously seeks the support of local residence, businesses, and industry representatives and civic organizations to bring her ideas to fruition. Ms. Maskew was once told by a local reporter that her legacy would be bringing the Environmental Docket/Court to Cleveland/Bradley County. Although Ms. Maskew is not focusing on a legacy, she merely wants to make Cleveland/Bradley County a better place for not only her family and friends, but for future generations. 

KAB's Board of Directors and community realize there will be many obstacles to overcome, but with Ms. Maskew at the helm, they are ready for the journey. 

Fentress County, Fentress County Solid Waste

Description: Litter prevention is top priority in Fentress County, and it is ongoing with support from our local sheriff’s department, county judge, county executive, county commissioners, elected officials, businesses, schools, state parks, and volunteers. Keeping litter to a minimum is a must not only for our locals, but tourists also. Tourism has become one of our biggest assets, and we are constantly working on litter abatements.

Community improvements and beautification would include working with the University of Tennessee Extension Office to keep beautification projects ongoing in the school system. Just one of the beautification projects is the poster contest where students compete for first, second, and third place poster on keeping Fentress County clean and green. Every school in the county recycles due to ongoing efforts with support from each principal and teacher. We are in our twelfth year of sponsoring the "Aluminum Can Drive", where students save the cans and bring them to our MRF facility. They are weighed and registered to the class and Solid Waste, using the Litter Grant Funds, gives the money back to the class. We also sponsored a plastic drive, a clothing drive, a recycling round up, and a Volunteer's Hero Award Program.

Minimizing waste: Our local sheriff allows inmates to help with road side litter. Also, community projects where entire communities assist in cleaning up their road ways helps out a lot. Getting the public involved in recycling clothing drives, recycling round ups, and managing our municipal solid waste in a cost-effective manner helps minimize waste.

Community Need: The program activity is important to the community because everyone needs to work together, whether it's local and state government, county, city, state parks, businesses and local citizens. When we all work together, we can get a lot accomplished. We rely on every aspect of the public to assist our efforts, and it's a proven record that it works. Our projects address the need to keep our highways clean and litter free, the importance of recycling and reduction, along with lasting beautification projects. 

A natural bluff, just a few feet from St. Rt. 52 where citizens were able to go enjoy a picnic, had been abandon and taken over by told drug users. Fentress County Solid Waste had to get permission from the state to restore the area, and promise to monitor it daily. We cleaned up all the garbage, used tires, and washed the graffiti off the bluff walls. After the area was secured and cleaned, we placed picnic tables back (they had been destroyed for years) along with trash receptacles. What a difference this made, as the area is now usable to the public, tourist, and just about everyone.

Resources: The funds are part litter grant, part solid waste, and local businesses. We did form partnerships with McDonald's and Dairy Queen Restaurants, Walgreens, Save-A-Lot Groceries, The Garden Club, The Rotary Club, the local county government and cities of Jamestown and Allardt, Pickett State Park, and the public.

Impact: We are seeing a decrease in roadside litter, improvement to communities where garbage has been removed, and now flowers, shrubs, and trees are blooming. Adding smoke pots to businesses and around county buildings has helped combat cigarette butts. The beautiful Road Side Pull Off near State Rt. 52 is now cleaned and taken back from drug dealers. Citizens are using it again. The result is a cleaner, safer county and gratification on how the entire community came together to show their volunteer pride. It has made lasting impressions on our already beautiful county. During the GAC 2010 we had a total 10% increase in volunteers and events compared to 2009.

Cocke County, Remove Illegal Dumpsites (RID)

Description: The rural area of Cocke County, with half its land mass being national or state forest, due to the lack of land use or misuse ordinances has caused the county to suffer. Illegal dumpsites that citizens have used to dispose of waste created a problem. A dedicated band of citizen volunteers decided to address the problem head on, forming a focused organization with its own Board of Directors known as Remove Illegal Dumpsites (RID).

The first step was to assess known sites, then to organize equipment, trucks, trailers, front end loaders, bobcats, etc. with teams of volunteers to perform the manual clean-up. Members of the Keep Cocke County Beautiful Board of Directors also participated on RID Board and the clean-up teams.

The goal was to remove this visually offensive litter and debris that represented blight to the roadsides within Cocke County. Private property owners, whose land was violated, were contacted for appropriate clean-up permission.

Between the 2009 and 2010, working mainly on weekends, a team of 12 to 20 volunteers was able to remove 40 such sites, an almost herculean effort. Over an 18 month period, a major clean-up effort was successfully conducted at a rate exceeding two per month. A total of 280 volunteer hours was achieved.

Minimizing waste: Cocke County, because of its Smoky Mountain National Park proximity and five rivers for river adventures, fishing, and camping is tourist sensitive. First impression appearances are quintessential to successful and continued tourism attractiveness. This was an effort to remove litter and debris that also had economic benefits to the citizenry of Cocke County. This program propelled itself to its almost frenetic volunteers pace because of the satisfaction of each site improvement. The results easily exceeded the Adopt-a-Highway benchmark criterion.

Resources: The in kind donations of equipment brought to bear on this effort can be calculated at conservatively $75.00 per hour of clean-up activity or $21,000.00 in the aggregate. RID accomplished this with a relatively small, well organized team of dedicated citizens. It was essentially a pilot program that demonstrates its potential should it be expanded.

Impact: The results are self-evident if you take a road trip or tour of the targeted areas. Some civic pride, or perhaps reticence to being “caught” has been effectively portrayed in our follow-up awareness, public education, signage, and, yes, unfortunately surveillance. This collective follow-up has frustrated chronic use of these sites going forward.

Because we’ve improved the visual environment that is Cocke County, just the river rafting incidence frequency (one of the few that can be statistically tracked by “gate receipts”) has swelled more than 20%. Yes, this is success.

Blount County, Keep Blount Beautiful

Description: The Litter Grant Program in Blount County is extremely successful. This success is due to a strong partnership between the Blount County Sheriff’s Department, the Litter Grant Administrator, and Keep Blount Beautiful (KBB). All three areas serve a different purpose and are extremely important to our success. Blount County receives $53,247 in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

A total of $39,947 supports the Blount County Sheriff’s Department Litter Crew. The crew consists of one litter officer, truck, trailer, and four to six inmates. The crew is sent out Monday through Friday for an eight hour shift to clean our streets. The Sheriff's Department covers the additional funds it takes to run this operation all year long.

2008-2009:
Litter collected-244,100 lbs
Recyclables Collected (aluminum & glass)-2,5801bs2

009-2010:
Litter collected-234,1201bs
Recyclables Collected (aluminum & glass)-4,6091bs

A total of $13,300 of the grant is allocated to the KBB education program. KBB educates elementary/middle/high school children, adults, businesses, and organizations. They run landfill tours, educate about litter, recycling, and storm water issues in our county. The KBB education program is an extremely strong program and very well regarded within the community. KBB also organizes year round clean ups to include: GAC Earth Round Up, GAC River Rescue, Big Orange Trash Bash (Fall), and Adopt A Mile. KBB also promotes Adopt A Highway and individual litter cleanup. Supplies are offered year round for volunteers to clean up litter any time of the day. In 2009-10, KBB reached 3,339 volunteers, 600 participants, 773 attendees, and a community audience of 20,400 people under the litter education program. Plus, they educated 1,887 students and 1,236 adults at 43 presentations. In 2008-2009, they reached 1,185 volunteers, 1,500 attendees, and a community audience of 22,362. They also educated 1,640 students and 918 adults at 53 presentations. Since July 2010 KBB has educated 1,554 students.

The Blount County Litter Grant Administrator, Beverly Collins, is an intricate part of the program. She processes all of the litter grant paperwork, checks to make sure everyone is up-to-date, attends all meetings in conjunction with the Litter Officer and KBB coordinator, and organizes meetings with the sheriff’s department to keep the lines of communication open between all parties. Beverly is retired from the county, but contracts in order to process the litter grant specifically. She has dedicated herself solely to this program because it is extremely important to her.

How do we partner? KBB has a county litter hotline. Litter complaints come in on a regular basis. KBB contacts the litter crew when calls are received. The litter crew then locates and disposes of the litter. Litter bags from KBB volunteers are also picked up by the litter crew. This is a wonderful service to offer our volunteers since the bags are taken care of for them.

As you can see, the Blount County Litter Grant program is an important program within our county. Residents rely on this program to help keep our roadsides clean. The partnership between all parties ensures the program's success.

Hamilton County Government

Scenic Cities Beautiful Commission’s education efforts cover all of the five targets.

Business: Promotes litter control in partnership with merchant associations and Chamber of Commerce Councils. Programs with business partnerships include: River City Company StopLitter Cleanups and The Great American Cleanup. Examples of events are: Heart of the City Celebration, Business Expo, and Leadership Chattanooga Conference. 

Media: Serves as local liaison for Keep Tennessee Beautiful statewide campaign “StopLitter”. Supplies information as requested or needed. Appears on annual public interest programming spots on radio and TV.

Public: Educates the public through promoting litter control such as Keep Tennessee Beautiful “StopLitter” campaign, TDOT Litter Hotline, The Great American Cleanup, and Keep America Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention Program through set ups at community fairs and festivals. Examples are: Hamilton County Fair, Riverbend Festival, Chattanooga Market, Bio Blitz, and neighborhood and nonprofit community events. Participates in clubs, associations, and other groups by serving as speaker or appropriate committee chair to support litter control activities. 

Student: Provides “Waste in Place” education by presenting programs and providing projects and activities for schools, classrooms, summer camps, after school, and preschool programs. Examples are: annual system wide event for fourth graders, annual academic competition for high school students, annual set up at the student center of University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, and Keep America Beautiful curriculum “Waste In Place” in-service for teachers.

Government: Coordinates services for litter control activities such as The Great American Cleanup and Keep America Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention Program. Participates in partnership opportunities such as National Public Works Day, National Public Health Week, and community development events.

Through the program the efforts of government, industry, nonprofits, and individuals are coordinated as partners to work on solid waste education and litter control. 

Litter Index is 2.5. Total volunteer hours value has risen from $361,002 in 2008 to $411,723 for 2010.

Scenic Cities is a joint city and county agency that leverages private and public funding sources. The cost/benefit ratio is $4.16.

The unique partnership is with Courts Community Services (CCS) providing collection. CCS utilizes non-violent offenders to relieve overcrowding in the prison system by offering alternative sentencing. CCS receives court referrals from Hamilton County Sessions and Criminal Courts and other county municipalities.

CCS contracts with TDOT Litter Grant for collection from the interstate and state route system and city of Chattanooga. This fiscal year the program has removed 119 tons of litter covering 4,050 miles of roadway in the county.

Statistical information indicates that more workers found less trash to collect, confirming the effectiveness of the litter control education efforts:

Fiscal Year 2007-2008:
Worker Days - 14,821
Total Miles Covered - 10,293.95 
Tons Collected - 387.23

Fiscal Year 2008-2009:
Worker Days - 19,844
Total Miles Covered - 10,146.65 
Tons Collected - 342.88

4 Month Fiscal Year 2010-2011:
Worker Days - 8,396
Total Miles Covered - 4,050.36 
Tons Collected - 118.97

Keep Bristol Beautiful

Description: Keep Bristol Beautiful (KBB) is a nonprofit organization under the auspices of the Bristol Chamber of Commerce, certified by Keep America Beautiful, Keep Tennessee Beautiful, and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The program is a broad-based beautification program designed to identify pressure points at which to change negative habits and attitudes that support littering. KBB has been in existence since 1983.

Our mission is to enhance the appearance and quality of life in our community through beautification projects, litter free events, and environmental education. KBB encourages schools, community-based organizations, and business to come together to support the quality of life in Bristol through participation and support of the KBB Program.

KBB Events Include:

National Green Week Celebration:

• KBB partnered with the City of Bristol, TN, City of Bristol, VA, and community leaders to form a "Bristol Green" committee to address environmental issues. The committee consists of mayors, city council members, city staff, hospital staff, and business leaders.
• KBB partnered with Johnson Controls, City of Bristol, TN, and the Bristol Public Library for the first Green Week Celebration in Bristol.
• The week-long celebration included: the signing of a joint resolution by both city mayors declaring February 1-5 "Green Week in Bristol"; Jeff Barrie, "Kilowatt Ours" producer, addressed the community at the Bristol Public Library; Jennifer Barrie made a presentation for children; Dodd Galbreath of Lipscomb University addressed the business community during a luncheon; the city unveiled its "Green" website; KBB produced and distributed "10 tips for going green"; KBB donated a copy of Richard Louv's book "Last Child in the Woods" to each elementary and middle School in Bristol, TN and Bristol, VA; KBB donated KAB's Nature Explore kits to each elementary and middle school in Bristol, TN and Bristol, VA .

South Holston Lake & River Cleanup:

• An average of 1,000 volunteers annually removes an average of 40 tons of litter from our beautiful lake and river.

Great American Cleanup:

• The 2010 event had 2,940 volunteers that cleaned up 1,710 bags of litter from our community. Great American Cleanup events included:
• Hosting a rain barrel and composting workshop.
• Partnering with the Holston Valley Green Building Coalition to host the first Green Building "Gala".
• Partnering with regional KAB affiliates, TDEC, and East Tennessee State University to host the Annual Regional Environmental Conference.
• Working with a local marketing group to develop a PowerPoint presentation to use for community presentations.
• Working with church youth groups to prepare downtown flowerpots for planting.
• Earth Day activities were held on April 21, which included a magic show about recycling.
• KBB worked with Vance Middle School, King College, Virginia Highlands Community College, Fairmount Elementary, and Littlest Angel Daycare to start recycling programs at their facilities.
• KBB assisted with "A Day in the Park" that included environment awareness.
• KBB worked with Master Gardeners and local garden clubs to plant more than 1,000 flowers in historic downtown and around the city.
• Cleared five miles of trails at Sugar Hollow Park.
• KBB partnered with the local utilities company to plant 16,524 trees.
• KBB worked with Master Gardeners to landscape at two People Inc. facilities.
• KBB conducted a clothing drive that provided 1,997 pounds of clothing to the Bristol Salvation Army.
• Nine schools and 14 civic organizations participated in the KBB/Great American Cleanup.

Other KBB events include: America Recycles Day, Beautification Awards, Community Plantings, Earth Day Events, Environmental Education, Beaver Creek Cleanup, Virginia Highlands Community College Day of Service, Virginia Intermont College Day of Service, Telephone Directory Recycling, Sullivan County Conservation Camp, Household Hazardous Waste Collection, Steele Creek Park Cleanup, Beautification Awards, Gardening Seminars, Moore Street Park Project, Windsor Park Project, and Rotary Park Project. In 2009, the value of volunteer hours for these projects was $210,965. The in kind value of goods and services was $266,200. The total KAB Affiliate Benefits was $537,165.

Community Need: A clean, beautiful community encourages tourism, economic growth, and increases real estate value. The needs addressed by the projects were litter reduction, increased recycling, and beautification. KBB works to improve the quality of life in our community. The KBB program exceeds normal standards.

Resources: KBB has a $90,000 annual budget. The city of Bristol, TN, provides $15,000, Bristol, VA, provides $5,000, and we receive $5,000 from DEQ in the form of a litter grant. Seventy four local businesses support the program through membership and sponsorships of events. KBB partners include: Bristol Tennessee Essential Services, Bristol Virginia Utilities, solid waste departments, water treatment plant, Waste Management, City of Bristol, TN, City of Bristol, VA, TDEC, First Tennessee Development District, Coca Cola Bottling, Forest Service, Sullivan County, and Washington County.

Impact: Through our partnerships with Bristol, TN, Solid Waste, Bristol, VA, Solid Waste, Sullivan County, and the school systems we have more than doubled our recycling since 2008. KBB created a four-color booklet for use in marketing the program and our mission of keeping Tennessee beautiful to the community. The booklets contain recycling locations and are available at venues throughout the community. They are also included in all newcomers and relocation packets (more than 1,800 annually) that are provided by the chamber of commerce. Through community awareness about the affects of littering and the importance of recycling, we have made great strides toward creating a healthier, cleaner, more sustainable community in which to live, work, and play. For every dollar invested in the program, KBB's return to the community is $14.36. KBB's overall litter index reading is 2.16.

Keep Coffee County Beautiful

Keep Coffee County Beautiful (KCCB) has been in place for almost 22 years. It has had many members and been involved in numerous recycling and litter prevention programs and projects. Community response is either “we are so glad to have you” or “when are you going to get started”. Fortunately the former is the consensus in Coffee County. Most people know who we are and what we try to do.

Recycling has been a major goal at KCCB to help reduce litter. In these tough economic times, assigning a dollar value to aluminum cans, paper, and ink cartridges seems to strike a nerve with people and resonate with their inner beliefs and pocket books. Something about saving the Earth and money makes for a great combination during these times.

KCCB have help implement paper recycling programs at the Coffee County Administrative Plaza. It has also supplied recycling bins and assistance to Robert E. Lee Elementary, Coffee County High School Golf Team, and College Street Elementary. Additional recycling efforts include assisting with recycling at the Coffee County Fair, First Vision Bank’s Shred Day, and participation at the Tennessee Recycling Coalition Earth Day Workshop. Recycling greatly reduces the amount of litter in our community. However, KCCB also organizes and implements community service workers to pick up litter in various high profile areas around the community.

Great ideas and new programs abound. Anything that helps promote a cleaner, greener, more beautiful county is a great idea. However, financial restraints often inhibit some programs and ideas from reaching fruition. Any help is appreciated.

Keep Anderson County Beautiful

Keep Anderson County Beautiful (KACB), a new Keep Tennessee Beautiful affiliate, wanted to initiate a small pilot beautification project in the City of Oak Ridge where its predominant core of volunteer networks is located. It also wanted to design a significant project that could jump start the community’s interest in beautification and partnership with this new organization. 

The small initiative began with KACB asking the City’s Park and Recreation Department to partner in the renovation of the entrance to the A.K. Bissell Park’s Secret City Commemorative Walk, a major point of interest in the community that tells the story of the 100,000 people who came to the city in 1942 to develop the highly secret Manhattan Project. While the project has been beautifully maintained, the entrance off the major thoroughfare was not part of the initial project and was ill-defined and overgrown with weeds. 

Click image for a larger version of the picture.Over the course of 18 months, the city reshaped the entrance and planted the major trees and shrubs during “spare maintenance time”, logging in about 60 hours. Three KACB volunteers did three seasons of planting annuals, supplied by the local Home Depot, and watered the new foundation plants during a very hot and dry summer. They also helped weed the older parts of the original planting to keep the site tidy, logging in about 65 hours. KACB has asked the city to tie this new plot into the irrigation system of the Commemorative Walk.

This project, while small, has sparked an interest in creating another beautification project in this former military-based town, where functionality has ruled community design. KACB is now partnering with the Oak Ridge Heritage, Preservation Association, and Home Depot to redesign and plant the entrance to Visitor’s Bureau (the Wildcat Den) that was in an embarrassing condition. This project was completed November 2010.

In order to create a “WOW beautification project” within Oak Ridge, KACB partnered with University of Tennessee School of Landscaping Design to develop five design scenarios to create a landscaped garden along the banks of a small stream that runs through Bissell Park, the most used park in the city and site of two major festivals and numerous public events. The small stream becomes a major functional storm-water channel that has resulted in major soil erosion and stream bank collapse over the years.

The student’s design scenarios would create planted riparian stream banks, thus maintaining the channel’s function, enhancing the park’s appearance, and drawing in even more park use. Some of the designs also include methods to slow down storm water flow to reduce bank erosion further down the stream. 

The designs have been submitted to the city with the anticipation of creating public comment and involvement. KACB and the city will be looking for funding for this project. The estimated costs for the projects range from $35,000 to $50,000 for engineering, permitting, and plants. It is estimated that the project would use about 1,000 hours of volunteer time. 

The impact of such a project would be for the community to incorporate community beautification into its plans for economic development.

Metro Beautification & Environment Commission

Metro Beautification & Environment Commission (MBEC) promotes and provides support for cleanups year round. We also now coordinate community service work for the Davidson County court system. With the budget cuts Metro Government has endured for the last few years, this has been a successful program for the City of Nashville. In several instances volunteer cleanup efforts have included the help of community service workers, most recently with the efforts to remove heavy debris from our creeks, streams, and rivers after the May 2010 Flood. 

The 2010 Great American Cleanup Kick-off for Nashville-Davidson County took place on March 16, 2010, at the MBEC Council meeting with Veronica Frazier, MBEC Executive Director, staff, and board members present. Councilman Bo Mitchell, District 35, read Resolution No. RS2010-1136, recognizing March, April and May 2010 as “Great American Cleanup Months” in Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. All volunteers were encouraged to participate and we were on our way to another successful Great American Cleanup in 2010. MBEC had received our in-kind donations from Keep America Beautiful and Keep Tennessee Beautiful. With Glad trash bags, Nestles Water, Purell hand sanitizer, and newly purchased gloves, we were ready to clean up Nashville.

At the same time the following message was going out to all public and private schools: 
Time to Plan Ahead for Those Spring Clean-Up Projects! All schools in Davidson County are invited to join the Great American Cleanup, which starts March 1st, and cleanup the litter around their school campus. Metro Beautification provides trash bags and incentive gifts for all students involved. Visit Metro’s website to Register for the Ring Around the School cleanup! Or call the Metro Beautification Office at 862-8418. Remember: Brown carts are for household trash and garbage. Green carts are for recyclable materials.

Nashville-Davidson County was off to a great start in the month of March with schools, churches, commissioners, neighborhood associations, and volunteer groups, such as Friends of Warner Parks and Madison-Rivergate Chamber of Commerce, conducting roadside and bulk item cleanups, removing illegal signs, cleaning school campuses, and park lands.

Metro Beautification held the Nashville Arbor Day Ceremony on March 25, 2010, in Centennial Park planting seven trees in memory or honor of individuals or organizations in the community; Alice Ann Barge, a Nashville Tree Foundation member and Metro Tree Advisory Committee member won the Award for Urban Forestry Excellence; Nashville was honored as a Tree City USA for the 15th year; Nashville Electric Service was presented the Tree Line City USA Utility designation; the George H. Cate Jr. Award was presented to Costco-West Nashville for preservation and proper protection of pre-existing quality trees on site and continuing maintenance; and there were three student essay winners from Nashville schools for the theme: My Favorite Tree.

MBEC, Metro Tree Advisory Committee, and Friends of Beautification volunteered at the April 17 Nashville Earth Day Festival booth where they promoted litter prevention, discussed community greening, talked trees, promoted recycling and composting, and held a Household Hazardous Waste drop off collecting CFL bulbs and mercury thermometers. Partnering with TDEC, mercury thermometers were swapped for a new digital. The Trash Art Contest winners were given their awards at this event.

March and April were great months, with neighborhood roadside and bulk item cleanups, tree plantings, beautification projects, campus cleanups, and information booths at festivals. Then the rains came, and eventually the flooding. Three major cleanups were canceled, one being a large water cleanup at Percy Priest Lake. Metro Public Works put all available employees on standby, including MBEC staff. Executive Director of Metro Public Works Billy Lynch and his staff first assessed damage of 125 roads which were closed and repaired within two weeks. Sites were cleared with FEMA and TDEC, contracts prepared and signed with SRS and DRC and contractors were placed into routes, along with Metro Public Works trucks and three staging sites were prepared. Then the real work began with Metro Public Works crews, contractors, community service workers, and volunteers working together.

Our warehouse lost a lot of newly purchased KAB materials for our education programs, gloves, donated Glad trash bags, and Nestles bottled water from our National sponsors. A call to Keep Tennessee Beautiful and Keep America Beautiful brought a donation of 7,872 Glad trash bags, which were quickly distributed among the Metro Disaster Information Centers organized at five community center sites. The Arthouse Gardens in East Nashville set up a distribution center for their residents to get supplies as they began to help each other clean up from the flood. Other materials donated for the volunteers were MBEC t-shirts, gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer.

Metro Beautification directly partnered and continued to organize cleanups with the following groups: Hands On Nashville Warehouse, Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood Association, 12South Neighborhood Group, Haynes Manor Neighborhood Association with Commissioner Richard Mayberry, Jeff Zuehlke with the 6th Avenue North Neighborhood Group in North Nashville, Councilman Darren Jernigan and the Old Hickory Community Center, Councilwoman Vivian Wilhoitte and the Antioch Community, Councilwoman Karen Bennett in Inglewood, Councilman Charlie Tygard in Belleve, Beech Creek Missionary Baptist Church in Bordeaux, River Plantation, Riverwalk and Boone Trace Homeowners in Bellevue, Parkwood Neighborhood Association in Northeast Nashville, Metro Parks Greenways & Ball Park Cleanup in Shelby Park, Cross Point Community Church Flood Cleanup in Bellevue with Councilman Bo Mitchell, and Hermitage Church of Christ-Hermitage/Donelson.

This will be the Great American Cleanup we will never forget. The community need was met by government agencies, businesses, non-profits, organizations, neighborhood groups, and more importantly by individuals who wanted to volunteer to help those in need. Everyone combined resources and formed partnerships.

Metro Beautification and Public Works logged the following totals during the May flood event:

• 33,198 trash bags
• 25,000 t-shirts
• 25,000 gloves
• 14,436 volunteers
• 76,051 volunteer hours
• 60 Cleanup Projects

2010 Great American Cleanup Results

Events held: 185 
# of volunteers: 24,845 
# of volunteer hours: 95,406 
# of participants: 2,147 
# of community service or court ordered workers: 897 
# of communities involved: 106 
# of community groups: 78 
# of pounds of litter, debris and bulky waste cleaned up: 762,805 
# of miles/streets/roads cleaned & beautified: 156 
# of playgrounds/community recreation areas built, cleaned, restored or improved: 1 
# of miles of rivers, lakes, shorelines cleaned: 25 
lbs. of plastic bottles collected for recycling: 11,312 
lbs. of glass collected for recycling: 1,767 
lbs. of aluminum and steel collected for recycling: 1,777 
lbs. of paper/newspaper collected for recycling: 54,094 
# of tires collected for recycling: 448 
# of batteries collected for recycling: 3,200 
lbs. of electronics collected for recycling: 43,799 
# of garden, landscape, xeriscape and green space areas created or improved: 20 
# of edible community gardens planted/replanted: 1 
# of trees planted: 6,607 
# of flowers and bulbs planted: 42,750 
# of education workshops/community outreach presentations: 80 
# of adults in attendance: 579 
# of children in attendance: 3,944 
# of general awareness events held (litter free events, booths at events, fairs, festivals, etc.): 35 
# of people in community audience: 224,952