We All Have a Part in Keeping Indy Beautiful

With bitter temperatures setting in and trees losing their leaves, many folks start to notice the litter collecting along Indy streets and alleyways; and every year we tend to get the same question: What are YOU going to do about all this trash?! In fact, litter is everyone’s concern in the city. We all want a clean, safe and beautiful place to live, work and play. Additionally, as the largest volunteer organization in Indy we help keep our city beautiful everyday with the help of some truly fantastic volunteers. Truthfully, our largest volunteer events each year are litter cleanups. The program, called the Great Indy Cleanup, has been empowering Indy residents to combat litter for more than 38 years. Here are some Great Indy Cleanup stats: 

Yep, you are reading that right: last year we coordinated 421 community cleanups; 16,691 volunteers came out to help; we picked up 2.1 million pounds of litter with the help of all those volunteers! You may also notice the increase in participation between 2007 and 2014. Mayor Ballard is responsible for this, in that he is a huge advocate of the program, and has provided us with City resources for the collection of all of this litter like no other mayor in the history of the program. A local, privately owned company, South Side Landfill, donates the disposal of this collected trash as a donation to KIB, so the City doesn’t even have to pay for this—talk about a true community effort! Mayor Ballard will be kicking off the program with us on Saturday, April 25, as he has done every year he has been in office. Maybe you’d like to be part of this event? You can read more about the kick-off event on our website, www.kibi.org, and make your own plans for a community cleanup. We will begin posting our spring volunteer opportunities next month. We hope you’ll consider joining us at a KIB volunteer project to learn firsthand how we are keepin’ it beautiful.