The Great American CleanupTM is coming April 27 & 28!
Through the partnership of askHRgreen.org and Keep Virginia Beautiful, Hampton Roads has been selected as one of 10 national kickoff locations for Keep America Beautiful’s 2012 Great American CleanupTM—the largest grassroots community involvement program in the United States. The launch of the Hampton Roads cleanup events, April 27-28, represents the only designated kickoff project in Virginia and will involve hundreds of volunteers transforming local parks, waterways and recreational areas into cleaner, greener environments.
“We couldn’t be more excited,” said, Keep Virginia Beautiful Executive Director Mike Baum, whose office worked closely with askHRgreen.org to obtain the designation for the area. “As a result of being named a national Great American Cleanup site, all 16 cities and counties in Hampton Roads will benefit from beautification projects to take place this spring.”
Over the past six months, askHRgreen.org has coordinated with the region’s municipalities to identify “transformational” community improvement projects with an eye toward turning local parks, playgrounds and public spaces into greener, more sustainable places to live, work and play.
The idea, according to Regional Project Chairman John Deuel, is to connect Hampton Roads volunteers with projects that will be meaningful to their community. In addition, community and environmental leaders may submit requests for new sites to add to the list.
“Depending on the cleanup site, we will need 25 or more volunteers per project, for a half day of work,” said Deuel. “If you live in Suffolk, for instance, and wish to volunteer for a project close to your home, you can do that. Hampton Roads corporations and businesses also will be invited to form their own cleanup teams to work on projects as a group.”
Last year, Keep America Beautiful’s National Great American Cleanup promotion drew more than 3.8 million volunteers that participated in 3,600 clean up events in 16,500 communities throughout the United States.
Poquoson volunteers will be concentrating on two areas this year. One is the Blueways area from Messick Point to The Wharf (see attached map). We plan to clean the launch areas on shore and are requesting anyone with boats which draw shallow water to assist with collecting litter around the shoreline, where possible. We also plan to clean the ditches adjoining these areas, Poquoson Avenue and Messick Road.
The second area is the Pocket Park on Messick Road. We would like to beautify this area with several small projects such as adding planters, changing out old damaged boards which outline the play area with “fun timbers”, add mulch and flowers in the planters, etc. I have attached a list of items we would liked donated to help in this project.
If you are able to help us Keep Poquoson Beautiful – please contact Evie Insley (868-3000) or Bodina Wright (868-3590) for more information.
