Keep Waco Beautiful is having a wonderfully busy spring. We are keeping things clean, recycling, educating, and beautifying. But who are we? We are one full time and one part time staff, a 40 member board, 250 members, and tens of thousands of community volunteers. And in addition, we have many partner agencies and businesses "greening" our community.
In 2007 Keep Waco Beautiful and 14,090 volunteers worked together to make Waco a cleaner, healthier, safer, more beautiful place to live and work. This year even more volunteers seem to be taking on this task.
At January's Chipping of the Green, volunteers arrived at Tyson Field parking lot, despite the cold and blustery day, to remove trees from residents' cars, mulch and return it for the residents' use and give them a free native sapling to plant at home, too.
As we moved closer to spring, Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce took the lead in the business community by promoting environmentally sound business practices like using recycled paper, avoiding reply cards and envelopes, using ceramic mugs rather than Styrofoam in breakrooms, recruiting the technology industries focused in the green economy, and making visible progress on their new LEED headquarters with cisterns to collect rainwater and turf on top of the building. Other businesses, like Johnson Roofing, have stepped forward to show us all how much sense building green makes as well. The Waco Tribune-Herald is doing their part too. Have you checked out the Greene Family at the Trib Online?
April 5th saw thousands of volunteers in the community cleaning and beautifying. The Lake Waco Cleanup was phenomenal! Over 500 volunteers collected trash and tires, painted boat ramps and bathrooms, and planted xeriscape gardens. Meanwhile across town Keep McLennan County Beautiful was collecting tires at the HOT Coliseum. Hundreds of volunteers showed up to unload over 4,000 tires from county residents. Among those delivering tires were nine Neighborhood Associations who decided to have huge cleanups that day. Besides tires, these neighbors collected almost 30 tons of trash and debris in less than four hours. Incredible! Baylor students were out painting houses for those in need in our community on April 5th. At McCullough House Historic Museum, volunteers gardened, weeded, and raked leaves. At Crestview Elementary, Vanguard students helped revitalize an old green classroom and installed a pond as well. Park Rangers led citizens on trail clearings throughout Cameron Park. And if you passed by the Herring Avenue ditch, you saw hundreds of volunteers collecting trash that would otherwise make its way to our river. Meanwhile on Elm Avenue, over 100 volunteers including Baylor students, Community Race Relations Coalition members, Master Gardeners, two of our city councilmen, and others planted 45 beautiful Knock Out rose bushes along that historic street. TxDOT led hundreds of volunteers on highway cleanups throughout our community as well. WalMart employees and those from other businesses signed up with the local TxDOT office and then showed up in large teams to clean our most traveled roadways. Rapoport Academy was hard at work on April 5th. They are revitalizing Quinn Campus one building at a time, clearing debris, weeds, and old vines and replacing them with native landscaping and beautiful roses. April 5th, called Texas Trash Off statewide, was an incredible day in Waco!
But the work didn't stop then. MCC students have since helped finish the Green Classroom at Crestview. Students and residents came together to plant a tree donated by the Elizabeth Gordon Bradley Daughters of the American Revolution for Arbor Day. Dozens of environmentally conscious community organizations gathered at the Cameron Park Zoo to celebrate Earth Day with interactive booths, games, and information. At Baylor, the Environmental Concern Organization, Baylor Democrats, The Magellan Society, Student Government and the Circle K service organization presented the University's 2nd annual Earth Day Celebration, which included a banquet with locally grown, whole foods, a festival with free organic lunch, informational booths, live music, and a lecture on Ethanol. Farm Day at the World Hunger Farm educated citizens on how to compost, grow and buy local produce, and much more. Girl Scouts cleaned WalMart parking lots where earlier they had sold cookies. An all women's motorcycle club collected street litter. Baylor University began a campus recycling program and is leading the Big 12 in pounds recycled per student! Seventeen local schools are competing in a national plastic recycling contest. The community is turning "green" right before our eyes!
Don't look for this momentum to slow down as the warm days of summer arrive. We are expecting record turnouts of volunteers and residents with household hazardous waste to dispose of properly on May 17th, Household Hazardous Waste Day. Before the end of May, over 30 volunteers will take to the streets for the annual Litter Index. They will take a tally of litter they see on randomly selected streets and Waco will receive a national Litter Index Rating to let us know how we are doing. As freshmen arrive this summer for Welcome Week at Baylor, they will be volunteering in downtown to paint over graffiti, pull weeds, and beautify the city's heart.
Neighborworks Waco also hosts Good Neighbor Week every summer. A neighborhood is selected and hundreds of community volunteers go to work, trimming trees, clearing trash and debris, planting flowers and trees, and so much more. As the hot month of September begins, hundreds of volunteers will clean city and lake parks for National Public Lands Day. Fall means the Brazos River Cleanup, which brings out hundreds of citizens for shoreline cleanup and the Waco Paddle Club to scour the waterway.
Texas Recycles Day follows shortly. Keep Waco Beautiful will partner with TxDOT and Goodwill to remind the public to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and ReBuy. We will promote donation of used goods to resale stores rather than our landfill. Second Chance Clothes is another recycle event that offers citizens a chance to take gently worn business clothes to Compassion Ministries for their residents who are interviewing for jobs and entering the workforce. And, of course, local schools will be recycling paper as part of the School Recycle Challenge. Last year over 200,000 pounds of paper and cardboard were diverted from the waste stream during this challenge. One fifth grader alone recycled 12,000 pounds! Look for even more paper to be collected this fall.
Reverend Wilbert Austin will again challenge the local pastors to a paint-off this fall. The pastors compete on painting accuracy and speed as their congregations show up to watch and help in great numbers. The result is that houses in need of paint and repair become beautiful additions to their neighborhood once again.
Master Naturalists will teach hundreds of WISD students about the Waco Wetlands in a program called Marsh Madness this fall. Master Gardeners will lead planting seminars, give Waco thousands of service hours beautifying and teaching, and will continue to promote "Waco is a KnockOut," a plan to promote Waco and encourage EarthKind plantings of the very hardy and showy Knock Out roses. Master Composters will be out there working hard, too. They will teach the public and school students about regular composting and worm composting. Keep McLennan County Beautiful will host another successful tire recycling day with hundreds of local volunteers this fall as well.
Momentum will carry us into winter as we gather at Heritage Square for Keep Waco Beautiful's annual Holiday on the Square event in partnership with the Arthritis Foundation and the JayCees. Shortly afterward, it will be time to think about mulching those Christmas trees again. Our parent organization, Keep America Beautiful, believes that "each of us holds an obligation to preserve and protect our environment. Through our everyday choices and actions, we collectively have a huge impact on our world." It's really a simple concept, but one with far reaching effects.
At Keep Waco Beautiful, Inc., we feel it is important that the people of Waco and its surrounding areas feel empowered to improve their living and working environment. One of the truths in human nature is the desire to enjoy attractive settings. To do this, the citizens, organizations, and businesses of Waco must cooperate and collaborate on the projects that are on-going plus strive to add beauty in the environment wherever they can. Sometimes Keep Waco Beautiful shows citizens a way to do that. Sometimes we plan waterway and neighborhood cleanups. Sometimes we can help with supplies of trashbags and gloves. But without volunteers, all the trashbags and gloves in the city would not make Waco a cleaner, greener place to live and work.
So, who
Keeps Waco Beautiful?
You do!
We all do!
