NNewsSpring 2003 5_14 - Keep America Beautiful

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NETWORKING THE NEWS A Look at What’s Happening Around the Country N etwork News as a regular feature showcases affiliates around the country who create innovative ways to prevent litter, beautify and improve their communities, and encourage recycling and minimize the impact of waste. What is your affiliate doing? We want to celebrate your achievements and we encourage all readers to contact us with your story suggestions, affiliate news updates, and inspiring stories that would be of interest to and educational for other affiliates, to be published in future editions of Network News. We urge you to share photographs of your good work as well, which will be returned to you. Please write, call or email Monica Surfaro Spigelman, Director of Communications, Keep America Beautiful, 1010 Washington Boulevard, Stamford, CT 06901, tel. 203.323.8987, x811, or email mspigelman@kab.org. NEW PROVIDENCE, BAHAMAS Bahamas Students participating in Project Green BLUEPRINT FOR A “GREEN” BAHAMAS Keeping the Bahamas clean and green is the focus of Project Green, a new program launched by the Bahamas National Pride Association, Ministry of Tourism and Dolphin Encounters. Enlisting the help of students and businesses, Project Green’s mission is to recycle large oil containers to make trash receptacles for private and public areas. Students are invited to paint the cleaned oil containers with eco-friendly pictures and slogans, and the new receptacles are places on school grounds, beaches and in parks. The Ocean Conservancy, formerly the Center of Marine Conservation, supplies students with materials and resources to create the environmental messages, indicates Alpheus Ramsey, Executive Coordinator of Bahamas National Pride Association. “Project Green is not just about cleaning up beaches and creating receptacles – it is about children being stewards of the environment and taking an active role in being part of the solution,” he said. According to Ramsey, the program was a natural partnership of the Bahamas National Pride Association. “Students who participated in our Junior Pride and Clean Campus programs also noticed the need for more trash containers around the island,” he continued. Project Green was created as a response to students who felt there were not enough receptacles on the beaches and playgrounds in their communities, reports Annette Dempsey, director of education at Dolphin Encounters. Local businesses, including C&S Steel Building Supply and The Paint Place, supported the kick-off event, and New Providence Development donated the oil drums to be used as receptacles. With Bahamas an important destination, it was important to raise local stewardship consciousness and help the community get involved in protecting its natural heritage, indicated Michael Jervis, a manager with the Ministry of Tourism. KEEP HOUSTON BEAUTIFUL RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FROM CHEVRONTEXACO Keep Houston Beautiful was selected to be one of eight recipients of the 48th annual ChevronTexaco Conservation Awards for 2002. The Award is in recognition of the affiliate’s model programs to prevent urban litter, reduce crime and rejuvenate neighborhoods. The ChevronTexaco Conservation Awards, presented September 26, 2002 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, are North America’s oldest privately sponsored conservation awards program. Since 1954, more than 1,000 citizen volunteers, professionals and nonprofit organizations have received these awards for protecting air, water, land and wildlife. This awards program was created by the late Ed Zern, a nationally recognized sportsman and former columnist for Field & Stream magazine. Under his direction the program was designed to seek out and honor individuals and groups who work to protect natural resources. Honorees also work effectively with diverse organizations to achieve consensus and meet difficult environmental challenges in practical ways. “Through the efforts of Keep Houston Beautiful we have actually improved the quality of life in our city,” said Lee P. Brown, Mayor, City of Houston. “We are proud that they have been honored by ChevronTexaco.” Since it began in 1977, Keep Houston Beautiful has conducted an amazing 2,600 cleanups involving 121,000 volunteers to pick up 13,000 tons of litter. Thousands participate in Keep Houston Beautiful programs, such as Adopt-a-Block, the Great American Cleanup TM and the Youth Environmental Conference. Attendance topped 9,000 at this year’s Little Kids’ Litter Party, which brings conservation lessons to young Houstonians. An acclaimed Keep Houston Beautiful program called Keep Five Alive is credited with revitalizing the City’s 5th Ward. This success resulted in the Clean Neighborhoods program, now a national model for reviving neighborhoods. As part of the program, patrols report illegal dumping, overgrown lots are landscaped, and youths create murals to eliminate graffiti. The program is now in 14 Houston neighborhoods. “We’d like Houston to become known as the cleanest city in America. And we’re going to do that by empowering people to take responsibility for their own environment,” said Robin Blut, Executive Director of Keep Houston Beautiful. Robin Blut, Executive Director of Keep Houston Beautiful, Mickey Driver, Director of Public Affairs for ChevronTexaco and Bill Linthicum, Chairman for Keep Houston Beautiful and Area President of Republic Waste Services, pictured by City Hall in Houston. HOUSTON, TEXAS page 12 keep america beautiful — NETWORK NEWS — spring 2003
KEEP INDIANAPOLIS BEAUTIFUL HELPS TRANSFORM URBAN SCHOOL Keep Indianapolis Beautiful involved hundreds of volunteers in the transformation of Cold Spring Academy, an urban public school in its community serving kindergarten through eighth grade students with diverse economic and social backgrounds. The school sits on 39 acres of rolling land and formerly degraded woodlands slightly west of downtown Indianapolis. The site is one of only a few remaining landscape designs in Indiana by noted naturalist landscape architect, Jens Jensen, dating back to 1911. Sadly, the grounds had been ignored for nearly 60 years. Thirteen acres of forest had become overrun and degraded by exotic honeysuckle, privet, and Oriental bittersweet, which prevented native plants and healthy habitat from flourishing. The school asked Keep Indianapolis Beautiful to help restore the land as closely as possible to the original Jensen design, while also creating an outdoor classroom for its student body. The work began in the fall of 2001 and provided the opportunity for the students and staff to reclaim and restore the property surrounding their school. Teachers, students, and volunteers spent weeks pulling out brush and piling it into large 40-cubic-yard dumpsters. Limbs were mulched for proposed nature trails throughout the woods. In the process, 100-year-old stone footbridge was uncovered, having been buried by the honeysuckle. Students unloaded 1,400 small saplings, and volunteers from three colleges, six middle/high schools, corporations and businesses, parents and grandparents, and professional/resource personnel joined the students and staff to take part in the massive business of planting the small trees. Several miles of paths were cut into the woods and volunteers built 12 picnic tables and stained them, finished a dock, and built and installed 30 bird boxes and nesting platforms throughout the grounds. Two large butterfly gardens, a medicinal garden and an herb garden with wildflowers were planted as well. Bulbs were planted at all entrances to the school, and wildlife-attracting shrubs were planted around the dock to encourage more wildlife. Last spring, hundreds of volunteers helped the school plant 63 more large trees with beaver wrap, 115 more shrubs, 35 flats of annuals, and 150 more perennials. This time students planted a vegetable garden, created an archeological dig, built two eight-foot bird blinds in the woods, constructed three eight-foot raised beds, built a tracking station, and installed a limestone amphitheater into a hillside following Jens Jensen’s theme of using council rings in his designs. The school curriculum now incorporates the outdoor classroom, and classes choose their area to maintain. Students harvest the produce from their vegetable garden, have class in their hidden Jensen council ring or near the various waterfalls on their property, and enjoy the gardens and butterflies from their classroom windows. INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Students of Cold Spring Academy cleaning and planting their outdoor classrooms and gardens. KEEP ISLIP CLEAN CONCLUDES RECORD-BREAKING CARD RECYCLING DRIVE In its 10th year of collecting card covers for reuse and recycling, Keep Islip Clean (KIC) announces that it has broken last year’s record by collecting 353,000 cards at the KIC office for shipping to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children in Boulder City, Nevada. Islip town residents, businesses and schools were involved in this annual effort, which enables thousands of pounds of waste to be eliminated from the town’s waste stream. According to KIC Director Nora Detweiler, cards are brought in from across the community – from schools to town government offices. KeySpan provides support for shipping and handling of the thousands of pounds of cards collected. KIC is looking to another successful drive in 2004, according to Detweiler. Local businesses, town government leaders and students support a record-breaking recycling effort in the Islip community. ISLIP, NEW YORK Community-Based Solutions Meet Technology THREE APPROACHES Keep Iowa Beautiful Litter Assessment ne Keep Iowa Beautiful (KIB) goal over the next 3-5 years is Oto reduce the volume of littering in Iowa by 50%. Partnering with the Iowa Department of Transportation recently, KIB identified a total of $13.5 million of public funds were spent on litter-related costs in Iowa. For its 2001 Roadside Litter Characterization Study, KIB identified a unique and effective integration of technology to help assess the state’s litter issue. Sue Smith, KAB’s director of education, reports that Gerry Schnepf, KIB’s executive director, utilized three corporations/agencies to develop Iowa data on the types of litter, sources of litter and Iowans’ litter-related opinions: Barker Lemar Engineering Consultants, Franklin Associates Ltd., and the Iowa DOT. Barker Lemar offered this description of the technology customized for KIB to conduct a physical assessment of litter along Iowa roadways ...“We wrote an interface for users to collect data with tablet PCs that was related to GIS/GPS tracking technology. Some data was collected on hard copy too”. As an environmental engineering firm working with landfill sites and underground tank removal, Barker Lemar was able to translate KIB’s need for detail into a workable, user friendly tool to analyze litter conditions. Franklin Associates conducted a survey of costs for federal, state and local litter control as well as a review of legislation in Iowa and surrounding states. Iowa DOT conducted a direct mail survey of Iowans asking about three litter-related topics: litter and littering along Iowa roadways; littering behaviors; and, litter and dumping in local communities. Each aspect of this two-year effort was invaluable, and clarified or emphasized need for future action. Next steps? Create programs to reduce litter and use this model to measure KIB’s effectiveness over the next several years. For additional information, contact KIB’s Gerry Schnepf (www.keepiowabeautiful.com). (continued on page 14) keep america beautiful — NETWORK NEWS — spring 2003 page 13
Page 1 and 2: Keep America Beautiful ® Published
Page 3 and 4: 50 YEARS HOW ARE YOU CELEBRATING KA
Page 5 and 6: ica SISSIPPI ity of life across the
Page 7 and 8: ALABAMA POWER& RENEW OUR RIVERS A C
Page 9 and 10: 50 The journeys changed his life fo
Page 11: VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT IRON EYES CODY
Page 15 and 16: 2003 GREAT AMERICAN CLEANUP SPRING
Page 17 and 18: ward Recipient Above: Joyce Kagan C
Page 19 and 20: For the past 100 years, when it com
Page 21 and 22: Freddie Mac and Keep America Beauti
Page 23 and 24: ® Congratulations 3M! We salute 3M

NNewsSpring 2003 5_14 - Keep America Beautiful

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