Let’s face it litter is ugly, it pollutes our waterways, it’s expensive for our cities, towns, and communities to remove. Keep Gastonia Beautiful provides a simple way for anyone to make a difference in their own neighborhood and provide the inspiration for others to do the same. Help Keep Gastonia Beautiful by joining us for a local cleanup. Grab a friend or two and get out and pick up trash.
Did you know?
• Litter clean-up costs the U.S. more than 11.5 billion each year!
• Trash blowing out of truck beds and tipped roll out bins cause a large percent of litter in our neighborhoods.
• Litter decreases property values, diminishes community appearance and promotes even more litter.
What can you do to make a different to help Keep Gastonia Beautiful? How about joining our Adopt-A-City Street Program? Becoming, you are joining other community groups, businesses, and individuals to help reduce litter in Gastonia, making a major contribution towards the city’s overall appearance. Through the Adopt-A-Street program, caring citizens can take part in the effort to maintain a healthy environment, improve Gastonia aesthetically, and show pride in our beautiful city. Who Can Adopt A Street? The purpose of the Adopt-a-Street Program is to: As an Adopt-A-Street volunteer, Keep Gastonia Beautiful will provide: Are you ready to Adopt-A-Street? Not ready to adopt a street but interested in doing a neighborhood or community cleanup? Email Jeffie.Hardin@gastonianc.gov Group cleanup Liability Waiver form HERE Today, we are as committed as ever to providing people with the resources to help prevent litter with the ultimate goal of helping to end littering in America. Each year, Keep Gastonia Beautiful joins the Catawba Riverkeepers for their Riversweep, the largest single-day clean-up initiative in the Southeast!. The Riversweep is a collective effort of dozens of non-profit, governmental, and for-profit organizations from 26 counties across North and South Carolina. The Catawba Riversweep is an example of the power of collaboration and cooperation and KGB is proud to be a Site Host each year! We have also volunteered our time to clean out their "litter gitter" located along Duhart Creek off of Lowell Bethesda Road. This is a very meaninful partnership for both Keep Gastonia Beautiful and the Catawba Riverkeepers.
Keep Gastonia Beautiful challenges you and your friends to get outside and keep our community looking clean and green! Pliking not only helps the community, it also helps you! Benefits include increased physical fitness, new friends and a sense of meaning from helping the environment. Be a Pliking Ambassador and get some "swag" for your Pliking friends. Current locations include: 2 @ Rankin Lake, 2 @ Lineberger Greenway, 1 @ Martha Rivers, 1 @ Warlick YMCA,
The Great American Cleanup® (GAC) is the largest community improvement program in the United States, engaging more than half a million volunteers on an annual basis through 15,000 different opportunities to get involved. The efforts of Keep American Beautiful and the GAC prompts individuals to take greater responsibility for their local environment. The first day of spring, kicks off our annual Great American Cleanup which runs from March 20-June 20th. At Keep Gastonia Beautiful, we work to inspire citizens to take action every day to improve and beautify our community but believe that if we join together on March 20th we can make a larger impact to improve the appearance of our city. Roadside litter is becoming a larger concern throughout the city. The Great American Cleanup is a call to action to engage more volunteers in public space cleanups, beautification, and recycling events conducted by Keep America Beautiful affiliates nationwide. Juliann Lehman, Keep Gastonia Beautiful Administrator says “It might not be your garbage but it’s your city and we cannot urge you enough to even clean up one bag of trash to keep our city looking green and clean.” We encourage all citizens to join Keep Gastonia Beautiful and give our city a spring cleaning. We will have free supplies available for pick up. If you need specific location suggestions please reach out to Jeffie Hardin Jeffie.hardin@gastonianc.gov
Adopt a Street
Litter-ally Everyone! – Individuals, family and friends, community and youth groups, businesses, schools, churches, and other organizations.
• Encourage community residents and organizations to adopt residential blocks of streets and keep them litter-free
• Tangibly demonstrate civic pride in your community
• Contribute to a cleaner and healthier environment
• Contribute to our overall economic development of our city
• Serve as an impressive reminder to the public not to litter the roadways or ignore our environment
One custom sign along their adopted route.
Trash bags, scale to weigh trash, gloves, grabbers and safety vests for use by the adopting participants.
Removal of “orange” trash bags from adopted street sections as necessary.
Read through our litter cleanup kit safety information here
Download our Adopt-A-Street Information Packet HERE.
Complete the forms on the link and email to Jeffie Hardinn @ Jeffie.Hardin@gastonianc.gov
Water Cleanups
This unique community engagement event is organized and led by the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization based in Charlotte, NC that was founded in 1997 and is dedicated to the preservation and protection of the waters of the Catawba-Wateree River for those who enjoy and depend on her.
Pliking
Definition: Picking up litter + hiking
We encourage you to post pictures of your cleanups on social media and tag us #KGBPliking
Pliking is a movement that started in Ogden, Utah that is dedicated to litter cleanup andprevention through a variety of programs,includingcleanup groups, trailhead booths, social media and presentations.
Thank you for your interest in helping to create a cleaner, more beautiful community! If you would like to learn more about organizing a cleanup, donating a stand in a park or trail near you, or to report a station that is out of bags, please contact Julie Heath @ julie.heath@gastonianc.gov
4 more coming soon to Crowders Mountain State Park
Great American Cleanup
Resources
