Keep Iowa Beautiful is now signing up volunteers for its annual Pick-Up Iowa event. Executive Director Andy Franz says this is the 25th year of volunteers picking up trash along roadways, parks, and in cities across the state.
“You know it can be anything, any group you know. It can be a family member, a sports team, a school, a church group, any sort of community you know, group that wants to get together,” Franz says. Franz says the event has two goals. “It helps to not only pick up the community and make it look better and so forth, and create that civic pride, but also it helps building leadership and volunteerism, which is what we strive for with all of our programs,” he says.
Franz asks you to register your group. “Just go on the website at KeepIowaBeautiful.org, and there’ll be a pickup Iowa icon to click on. And you go in and it’s from April 1st to June 30th,” he says. Franz says they like everyone to schedule their event during this time. “We tried to have a time frame so that we’re able to capture that and then record it and feed it back out, that these are the things that have happened. And you know, historically, over the past five years, we’ve hosted 150 plus clean up events statewide,” Franz says.
He says they have a special goal for the event this year. “We are shooting for 2,500 volunteers, picking up 2,500 bags of litter because Keep Iowa Beautiful is 25 years old this year,” he says. “Started by former Governor Ray and Don Lamberti, the founder of Casey’s 25 years ago. And the cornerstone program was initially picking up litter and so forth, but it’s grown into all sorts of programs that are aimed at helping small and large communities, particularly the rural communities.”
Keep Iowa Beautiful is an affiliate of the Keep America Beautiful program.