Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Local organizations work to keep Mississippi litter-free
By Haley Crum
Daily Mississippian (U. Mississippi)
05/01/2006

(U-WIRE) OXFORD, Miss. — Keep Oxford-Lafayette County Beautiful, the local chapter of Keep America Beautiful, is at work as they move forward with their biggest service project of the year, the Great American Clean-Up.

The Great American Clean-Up is an annual service project hosted by Keep America Beautiful. From March 1 until May 31, people from across the country will come together to clean litter problem areas and help keep their cities beautiful.

"It's all about improving the quality of life as far as making things clean, pretty and litter free," Oxford Recycling Coordinator and KOLCB member Amberlyn Liles said. "The main goal of this project is litter reduction."

According to documents provided by Keep America Beautiful, the organization has 551 certified affiliates in 40 states.

"My favorite part of Keep America Beautiful is looking around you and being proud of the place you live in," KOLCB member Allison Duckworth said. "We have 900,000 people come to our city each year and we want our community to look great by taking care of it and keeping it clean."

Keep America Beautiful was established in 1953 and has focused on educating students and citizens about the environment and anti-littering practices, according to Keep America Beautiful Vice President of Communications Robert Wallace.

"We focus on litter in particular, but we also talk about all kinds of community involvement," he said. "It's a behavior that has to start young and we try to start that by telling them the impacts of littering and the positive impacts of giving back."

The location for the widespread cleanup, usually held in Times Square, has been moved.

For the first time in Keep America Beautiful's history, the Great American Clean-Up kickoff was held in Biloxi, a decision Wallace said was an easy one.

"The whole process began about two days after Katrina hit when our entire organization sat around the conference room table and said, 'Wow. What can we do?'" Wallace said.

"Luckily, Mississippi in general is a very strong state affiliate in our organization and it wasn't hard to get help. We chose to do the kick-off in Biloxi because it is the place we could get the most supplies to and have the largest effect on."

The usual Times Square commencement is now a thing of the past, Wallace said. Future kickoffs will be held in areas around the coast that need help the most, he said.

Keep America Beautiful and KOLCB are non-profit organizations and are sponsored through private and public donors.

[ Back to Student Voices ]