Think of Us this Earth Day
Are you ready for Eart
h Day? Our home base is in Richmond, and there are two great events right across the river from each other. There are other Earth Day festivities just outside of town, and we’ve heard of celebrations in Northern Virginia, Tidewater, the Shenandoah Valley, the Mountains…
It would seem that Virginia is excited about celebrating Earth Day and giving at least time and thought into how we can all do more to be better stewards of our planet and Keep Virginia Beautiful.
But can we suggest just a little bit more?
At Keep Virginia Beautiful, we don’t make anything or sell anything. We’re kind of like Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything:
“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.”
But that doesn’t really pay the bills.
Our mission is to be the statewide voice for advocacy and communication in our impact areas of litter prevention, recycling, waste reduction, beautification and education. We’ve designed this website and embraced the world of social media to help connect all of you and spread the message of keeping our Commonwealth beautiful. We try to engage you in this process, and try to cultivate and support sustainable programs that can help us to achieve our goals. 
Most often, this involves asking you to do a little something. Clean a neighborhood or recycle something. Paint a peeling playground or plant some trees. Sometimes, we are able to provide seed money to help you start your own programs. Sometimes we are able to offer recycling bins or litter bags or pocket ashtrays. But again, we don’t sell anything, buy anything or process anything. The money for these programs comes from generous corporate partners like Altria and Waste Management who feel that it’s their responsibility and the right thing to do to help to Keep Virginia Beautiful.
But we still need help paying the bills.
In order to continue our mission we need your help. And there are a variety of ways that you can do that. You can continue to perform your good works and keep spreading the good word.
But wait, there’s more…
2013 marks sixty years of Keep Virginia Beautiful, so to us, 60 is a pretty magic number. It takes sixty seconds to step from the curb and pick up a discarded can. One could plant a pretty good number of flowers in sixty minutes. And we could buy several recycling bins with sixty dollars. So pitch in!
There is no better time than now to Give 60. Let Earth Day be the real impetus for your action to truly take shape. Commit those seconds or pledge to spend an hour. Catch your friends in a Beautiful Act and send us the pictures. Think of us on your birthday as we celebrate ours and give $60. Or $600. Or just $6. Join us at our Gala in October at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The proceeds from that fun party will help us to continue.
We would very much like to do more. We added recycling bins to the Virginia State Parks. How about to the schools and other public places? We hand out pocket ashtrays and shopping bags when we go to events. But there’s so much to do. There are so many places that could use a community garden, and so many children that need to experience an outdoor classroom.
This is where you could come in and help us to Keep Virginia Beautiful. Thanks for thinking about us.