On behalf of the Broad Rock Baptist Church Youth Ministry, I want to say thank you for the opportunity to participate in the adopt a highway program. The youth enjoyed the experience! We are looking forward to many more cleanups!
Hermitage Elementary families come to the school to grab a cleanup kit and choose where they want to cleanup. Some went to their neighborhood and others chose the beach. Our Hermitage Vikings picked up over 50 pounds of trash that otherwise might have wound up in the Chesapeake Bay.
Each year Keep Virginia Beautiful and Retail Merchants Association team up to bring a free recycling event to residents of Richmond and the surrounding counties. Typically held in November, 2020 was the first year we decided to switch it to an Earth Day event — which was then cancelled, like all others, due to COVID. With restrictions easing and a plan to minimize contact, Retail Merchants Association, Keep Virginia Beautiful, Goodwill, TFC Recycling, and ProShred made plans to host the event on September 18.
With the threat of rain moving out that morning, citizens began lining up to bring their electronics to be recycled and documents to be shredded nearly an hour before the event started at 10AM! It’s no wonder the steady flow of cars continued until 2PM — the event was the first of the Fall community recycling events to take place, and after a Spring where all were cancelled, people were ready to turn in their saved recyclable items. To that end, both ProShred and Goodwill expressed this was among their most successful events ever!
Just for comparison, last year we processed 9000 lbs of paper and 3200 lbs of electronics; and this year we topped 15,000 lbs of paper, and 5500 lbs of electronics. That’s amazing!
So even with all the restrictions of things we cannot do during COVID, recycling is something we all CAN do! Thank you to all who care and know the benefits of recycling, and came out to this annual event. We hope your house is a little less cluttered!
Check out our calendar for future recycling and socially distanced cleanup events being planned for the Fall.
We continue with our series of Latest News featuring a glimpse of the judges for our 30 in 30 Green Grants Program. If you submitted an application for one or our grant awards this year, you know that all of the grant proposals are being read and evaluated by our panel of judges during the month of May. We’ll announce the grant winners one each day during the month of June, but we thought you might like to learn a little bit about the judges themselves. They are an impressive group, and we’re pleased that they share their expertise and time that it takes to read, evaluate, and score the Green Grants application forms. Especially this year, with our largest number of submissions ever!
In the Recycling category, we have Doug Sharo, who is the Senior Program Manager of Sustainability for WestRock. In this role, he is responsible for supporting the development and implementation of WestRock’s sustainability strategy and associated goals. He also leads customer engagements and external communications related to sustainability.
Doug says that he enjoys volunteering his time for Green Grants because they are tangible projects that can make a big difference for their communities. “It’s also inspiring to see grassroots efforts implemented at the local level in my home state,” he said. Thank you Doug, we appreciate all that you do for Keep Virginia Beautiful!
We want to take another opportunity to introduce you to another one of the judges for our 30 in 30 Green Grants Program. If you submitted an application for one or our grant awards this year, you know that all of the grant proposals are being read and evaluated by our panel of judges during the month of May. We’ll announce the grant winners one each day during the month of June, but we thought you might like to learn a little bit about the judges themselves. They are an impressive group, and we’re pleased that they share their expertise and time that it takes to read, evaluate, and score the Green Grants application forms. Especially this year, with our largest number of submissions ever!
Suzanne Taylor is one of four judges in the Litter Prevention category. She is the Financial Responsibility Programs Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Land Protection and Revitalization, having worked at DEQ since 2005. In her current position, she implements statewide financial assurance programs for solid and hazardous waste facilities, among other responsibilities. Suzanne said her job puts her in contact with people from across the state and in a variety of businesses and local governments, and she feels honored to work with people who promote the health and well-being of the citizens of the Commonwealth.
Suzanne volunteers as a judge for the Green Grants program because she’s concerned with the protection of the environment, and enjoys learning about programs that are making a difference in reducing litter and cigarette waste across Virginia.
If you submitted an application for one or our 30 in 30 Green Grants this year, you know that all of the grant proposals are being read and evaluated by our panel of judges during the month of May. We’ll announce the grant winners one each day during the month of June, but we thought you might like to learn a little bit about the judges themselves. They are an impressive group, and we’re pleased that they share their expertise and time that it takes to read, evaluate, and score the Green Grants application forms. Especially this year, with our largest number of submissions ever!
Let me introduce you to Eunice Kulesza, one of our judges for the Community Beautification category. As the Senior Environmental Specialist for Fareva, she was responsible for Environmental Compliance with Federal, State and Local environmental regulations, and ran the Environmental Stewardship Program that includes Energy Efficiency, Water Conservation, Waste Reduction, Cooperate Social Responsibility, Community Outreach, and on-site environmental improvement. She recently retired after working for 34 years in the manufacturing/pharmaceutical industry.
Eunice also came to us with experience as a judge, having been a judge for the Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality’s Governor’s Environmental Excellence Awards for the last three years. Fareva was a winner of the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award in 2013 for its Zero Landfill program. She said she enjoys using her environmental expertise to help bring meaningful projects to life, and she’s looking forward to seeing who the winners are this year!!
Frederick County Recycling collects gently loved stuffed critters so that they may find love and hugs again in the heart of another through its “Once Upon A Child” collections.
The Diamond Family celebrated a rainy, muddy Earth Day by cleaning up Morgan Frederick Grade. It was tough work but they had a great family time doing a good thing.
Unfortunately covid-19 physical distancing requirements on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day meant a solitary trash cleanup project, not the neighborhood-wide event I envisioned. Proud to have removed this from the street & prevented it from entering nearby streams.
The Lovettsville Cooperative Market is now the sponsor of the Lovettsville Community Garden. The garden was closed for a few seasons and is now ready to go. There are 9 plots rented by Lovettsville residents as well as a flower garden with a combination of annuals and perennials. A new sign was recently installed by our 8 and 12 year old garden plot renters.
