High school horticultural students are taking part in the “Take More Pride in Moore” Keep Moore County Beautiful campaign.
During the month of March, Keep America Beautiful affiliates all over the nation are sponsoring events to highlight the “Great American Clean Up,” now in its 18th year. Over 2 million volunteers participated in 2002.
“The Great American Clean Up not only involves cleaning up,” says Keep Moore County Beautiful Executive Director Joan Neal, “it involves beautification as well, which is what we’re doing right now with the liberty gardens.”
The students are raising seedlings, donated by KMCB, and drawing up landscape designs. Winning designs will be chosen from each high school. Southern Pines landscape architect Vince Zucchino will be coordinating the design contest with participating students.
In April, students and volunteers will visit fire stations and plant the gardens, which will feature red, white, and blue flowers to commemorate fire fighters who gave their lives on Sept. 11.
The Great American Clean Up is the country’s largest annual community improvement program. Five hundred KAB affiliates participate. “This is a beautiful county,” Neal says, “and we want to keep it that way.” But recently, Neal says her board of directors have noticed an increase in local littering.
“We’re all concerned about the litter problem in Moore County,” says Neal. “People think, ‘Oh, this one little piece of trash isn’t going to make any difference,’ but it really does because the next person comes along and they see that litter and it encourages them to do more littering. You throw one thing out, it accumulates.
“Right now we’re working on developing a litter court. We’re starting by meeting with all the law enforcement officers to get their input on it, and from there we’ll go to Judge Webb.”
Superior Court Judge James Webb attended the litter summit hosted by KMCB last October.
“When I attended the national conference in Washington, there were a lot of Keep America Beautiful affiliates that have litter court,” says Neal, explaining that tickets are issued to offenders, whose cases are then handled in magistrate’s court.
The suggestion Neal has heard most often from the police officers she has talked to is to publicize the litter issue. Police chiefs tell her they would rather encourage people not to litter than issue tickets.
“A lot of law enforcement officers said it’s hard to catch litterers, because if they see a marked vehicle they’re not going to litter,” says Neal. “They wait until there’s nobody around.”
It’s been over 30 years since Keep America Beautiful aired the famous “crying Indian” public service announcement spots.
“People have sort of forgotten about the litter issue,” says Neal. “I think it’s because of the lack of publicity these days.”
Neal feels that education is the key to rekindling that pubic concern, and that the place to begin is with today’s young people. KMCB recently distributed a curriculum supplement entitled “Waste in Place” to Moore County schools.
“Waste in Place” is a teaching guide developed by Keep America Beautiful for grades K-6. Thirty-three lesson plans cover a range of topics, including recycling, composting, and source reduction. Neal hopes that children will discourage parents from littering, in much the same way that kids growing up with seatbelt education are good at reminding their folks to buckle up.
Keep Moore County Beautiful also hosts Spring and Fall “Clean and Green” school beautification contests. Twice a year, four winning schools each receive a banner and a hundred dollars to be applied to beautification projects.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Neal says, “but most of the school campuses are really pretty now. They take pride in their campuses. We encourage everybody to take pride in the entire county – that’s why we don’t want people to litter — we want to keep it pretty.”
The Third Annual Keep Moore County Beautiful Marge Owings Memorial Golf Tournament, the organization’s primary fundraising event, is scheduled to be played at Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club on Saturday, May 10 and Sunday, May 11.
Entry forms are being sent out this month, and anyone interested in participating or volunteering can contact KMCB at 947-3478.
Lynn Rhoades writes a weekly column for The Pilot’s opinion pages.
