| Executive Summary | |
|---|---|
| Litter Prevention | |
| We coordinated two major countywide Great American Cleanups, which we do yearly, one in the spring and the fall. We have nine towns in our county who have representation on our Board. Each time we appoint an overall coordinator from our Board and then the representatives in each town are responsible for overseeing the cleanups in their community with the help of shared supplies, publicity, and support of the Conway Sanitation Department/Landfill, the County Road Department, and the Arkansas Highway Department. In the past years we have had free days at the Landfill for the whole county during the events, but participation had grown to the point where it was more than could be handled by the Landfill and the county trucks at one time. So starting this fiscal year with our cleanup last September, 2002, we confined it to strictly enlisting volunteers to pick up litter on streets, highway, roads, and public places. By prearrangement, we were able to leave the bags of litter by the roadside to be picked up by the different departments mentioned above. To replace the free day at the Landfill for residents to utilize after being encouraged to cleanup their properties, we started a NEW PROJECT, which we call Monthly Cleanup Program. We divided the county up into 6 areas where a 40 yard Roll-Off dumpster is provided twice a year. The Conway Sanitation Department/Landfill partners with us by transporting the dumpster to and from the areas and taking the refuse free of charge. We are responsible for paying a $65.00 fee each time to cover the transporting costs. We ask for donations to cover the charge and have been successful in raising more than enough each time from the citizens who are grateful for the service. Our organization promotes, publicizes, and informs the public that the purpose is to allow residents (not commercial) to cleanup their properties and dispose of items free of charge, and our members man the dumpster each time. We started the program last October, and it has been tremendously successful. We feel that it has made a significant reduction in illegal dumping of household goods. Another great NEW PROJECT in litter prevention that we conducted for the month of August 2002, was a Can Your Butts Campaign to educate the public about cigarette litter. We partnered with the local paper and set up a contest with cash prizes for picking up the most cigarette and cigar butts from public areas in the county. The time period for the contest was a week that ended with a weigh-in, rewarding of prizes, and refreshments. Several weeks before the contest started, the paper ran publicity about it with an entry form. Also, they published many articles that we had put together to educate the public about all the problems and dangers related to the improper disposal of tobacco products. Included in these were articles written by the Conway Police Chief, the County Sheriff and the Conway Fire Chief, who were happy to join us in the campaign and give their perspectives on how the cigarette litter affects their different fields, for instance, the fire danger being one problem. We had 20 people enter the contest and they picked up a total of 70pounds of butts from public areas, for which we awarded a total of $800.00 in cash prizes. The project really got a lot of attention in our County, and even the State paper and the USA Today printed articles about it. From the reaction that we have received from it, we know that it had a major educating impact, and we are working on funding to have a yearlong program on cigarette litter starting soon. At the close of the "Can Your Butts Campaign" last August, we immediately launched another NEW PROJECT- “Litter Bug Watchers Program.” We got the cooperation of the Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department to set up “Tip Line” phone numbers at each place for citizens to call in and report the license numbers and other details of litterers, and they in turn would send out a letter to the offender. We developed a form for the citizens to go by in reporting and the letter that the departments would use, as well as advertised a form in the paper and distributed flyers about the project. Citizens were instructed to report anything within the City of Conway to the Police Department and all others to the Sheriff’s Department. For this fiscal period the Police Chief has sent out 60 letters and the Sheriff has sent 15. Through a Litter Prevention Sign Project that we started 3 years ago, we have a close working relationship with all of the police enforcement agencies in the County. We had numerous meetings with the different groups and got their commitment to step up surveillance of littering and enforcement of the State litter law. One major outcome was that the Conway Police Chief appointed an officer to be the full time Code Enforcer, which before was a position handled ineffectively by the building Inspector. We get periodic reports from the Police and Sheriff’s Departments on all litter and code violation warnings and citations, plus we work closely with the Sheriff to clean up illegal dumpsites in the County. We conducted 3 Litter Free Events this year at the Carnival of Caring, Toad Suck Daze Festival, and at the Liberty Garden Celebration. The Carnival of Caring is an event that attracts over 400 people to downtown Conway on an August afternoon of family activities and entertainment to showcase the different United Way Services. This is the third year that KFCB has had volunteers, with Clean Team shirts and buttons, keeping the trash picked up and encouraging the crowd to do the same. Six volunteers worked 21 hours collectively this year. The Toad Suck Daze Festival is a very large 3 day event in Conway, that attracts over 150,000 people from all over the state and country. This, too, was the third year for us to make it a litter free event with 40 Clean Team volunteers serving 104 hours. Our other Litter Free event was the Liberty Garden Celebration that was held on Memorial Day and attracted 300 people. We had 15 volunteers give a total of 30 hours. The goal of all our Litter Free Events is threefold: to maintain a clean and pleasant setting for the events; to reduce the expense to the City in cleanup afterward; and to try to change the behavior of throwing trash on the ground at public events in the hope that change will carry out to our streets and highways (this is our most important goal.) To sum up our Litter Prevention programs-we have had 14 different cleanup events and 3 litter free events with a total of 1,215 volunteer hours given. In addition to these we had on going efforts throughout the year to educate the public on litter prevention through workshops, classroom presentations, Waste In Place Teacher Training, and community outreach programs, with a total of 47 different events reaching a total of 2,720 youth and adults. Not counted in the above are three other programs where we had Environmental Education Booths at the Children’s Health Fair; the University of Central Arkansas Volunteer Fair; and the Hendrix College Career Fair. Collectively, we had 13 Board Members give a total of 80 hours of handing out materials, conducting activities and using other methods of educating the public on litter prevention, recycling, and good waste management. A total of 1,600 people attended these three events. Back to top | |
| Beautification and Community Improvement | |
| The most outstanding accomplishment that we were able to complete this year in the way of beautification and community improvement was the building of the NEW PROJECT the “Laurel Park Liberty Garden.” Following the challenge that KAB gave to its Affiliates in 2001, to create special places of beauty called “Liberty Gardens” to honor the victims and heroes of 9-11, we initiated and partnered with the Master Gardeners to create many gardens of all sizes throughout the county in the spring of 2002. However, we had the vision of a larger more permanent Liberty Garden to be built in a centrally located park in Conway, which is the county seat. Because of the size of the venture, it took considerable planning and fundraising; so we were not able to start it until the fall of 2002, and see it completed this spring. The Laurel Park Liberty Garden is a large pentagonal shaped gazebo capable of holding 25 to 30 people with paths and raised garden beds in the same shape encircling it and radiating out from it. The concrete paths are 6 feet wide and the design creates 5 inner garden beds that are each 16 ½ feet long and 4 feet wide, and 5 outer garden beds that are 31 feet long and 4 feet wide. At the front are two 30 foot flagpoles on each side of a large engraved bronze marker, which states that is the Laurel Park Liberty Garden dedicated in honor of the victims and heroes of 9/11/01 and to celebrate the history and freedom of our country, and that it is a project of Keep Faulkner County Beautiful and Partners, who are 18 businesses and groups that are listed on the marker. The beds contain 85 evergreen shrubs and hundreds of red, white and blue flowers. It is equipped with a sprinkler system, landscape lighting, lighting and electrical outlets for the gazebo, and spotlights to illuminate the flags. All of the lights are set to come on automatically at night. It is a beautiful place where citizens of all races and creeds can come together in shared sorrow and commitment; also it will serve for many individual and community activities. KFCB is totally responsible for initiating, planning, and creating the whole project by first engaging the City’s approval and support for locating it in a City park, and then getting the entire thing built with donations from the community. Our partners included 17 different businesses that contributed a total of $6,150.00 in cash and $26,279.45 in-kind labor and materials. The Master Gardeners helped with the planting, as well as other individual volunteers. We had a Dedication Service at the site on September 11, 2002, just after the foundation for the gazebo was finished. At our invitation a high school band ensemble, the Police Departments, Fire Departments, Veteran Groups, and City and State Dignitaries were a part of the service. After finishing the project, we then had a “Liberty Garden Celebration” on Memorial Day to recognize and thank the partners in the project. We had 300 people attend that event which featured the Conway Area Men’s Chorus in a patriotic musical presentation, a short program about the Garden with special recognition of all the contributing partners, and ending with a cookout of hamburgers, hot dogs, all the trimmings, cookies and soft drinks. The food was all donated by local businesses and prepared and served by our members. The Men’s Chorus donated their time and talent, also. It was a tremendous success and appreciated by all. Our other beautification projects for the year include the continuing of our partnership with the Master Gardeners, and the Friends of the Library organization in the landscaping of the five county libraries. We started this project three years ago and each year there is additional work done. This year our organization contributed $1,360.00 to the planting and improvement of the landscaping, which includes 946 plants and other materials. There were 56 volunteers who gave a total of 490 hours on this project this year. Landscaping of the Greenbrier City Hall, another NEW PROJECT, was completed this year. Our members from that town partnered with the Master Gardeners and the Mayor office to transform the front of the building with a new much improved look. There were 7 people who volunteered their time on this project. A total of 21 hours were spent in the initial installation of 152 plants and 7 hours in weeding, mulching and more planting this spring. There is a plan for another phase this fall. Back to top | |
| Waste Reduction | |
| Recycling, reuse, and resource reduction are a component of all our projects and educational programs. It is an integral part of our cleanups and our litter free events, especially. This spring we were able to initiate and conduct in partnership with the Conway Sanitation/Recycling Department a NEW PROJECT and have for the first time ever a Hazard Household and Electronic Waste Recycling Drive. We applied and received a $10,000.00 grant to facilitate the program. The project took a tremendous amount of planning, and a number of trips to the City Council to get approval for every step. We contracted with a company in Northwest Arkansas who handles that kind of operation, and were very pleased with the outcome. We had the drive for 7 hours on Saturday, March 29, 2003, with 12 volunteers working hard in freezing weather. The event had been well publicized throughout the County and the response was a steady stream of vehicles bringing old paint, computers and television, etc. that they had in their storage places for years and didn’t know how to properly dispose. There were 458 pounds of hazard waste collected and a large 18 wheeler of electronics. Everything that could be was recycled or reused in some form or properly disposed of by this company. There was a total of 152 hours given to this project. One of the proposals that we had to get through the City Council was to allow us to charge a small sliding scale fee for items brought to the drive, and to allocate to this project all the fees charged at the Landfill for taking white goods in order to not deplete the total assets for one drive, but enable us to have one twice a year. We have the next one scheduled for this September 20. Another NEW PROJECT, the Freon Removal Program, was initiated by our organization last fall. This is something that we have started to try to eliminate the illegal dumping of old refrigerators and etc. Before anyone could bring a refrigerator or other equipment that uses Freon to the Landfill for disposal, it was necessary to have the Freon removed at a cost of $30.00 to 40.00. When Virco Mfg. Corporation of Conway, who has been a leader in recycling and a strong supporter of KFCB, offered to give us some funds for a project, we asked for them to buy a Freon removal machine and donate to the City Sanitation Department. We had all ready worked on all of the details of setting up the program with the Sanitation Department; so that county residents could bring the items to the Landfill and have the Freon removed there free of charge. Because we found a volunteer who was certified to remove Freon and was willing to do it for what he could market the Freon for, we were able to make it happen. The cost of the machine was $900.00 and was totally purchased by Virco. Five of our members devoted 220 hours to this on going project. The “Recyle City Classroom,” which was created next to the office of our Executive Coordinator/City Recycling Coordinator at the Conway Sanitation Department, was a new endeavor for this year. A storage room was renovated by the Department and our Executive Coordinator and her mother, a KFCB Board member, transformed into “Recycle City” with all four walls and ceiling beautifully painted with appropriate murals depicting recycling messages. The classroom is an area where people can come and have a hands on experience, and learn about the importance of recycling and related issues. Many students have come to the classroom this year to learn how to separate items that could be recycled, read stories about the benefits of recycling and learn about the department’s material recovery facility. This year 2,150 students have come to the classroom for these programs. We are fortunate in Conway to have had curbside recycling for sometime, which our members have been advocates in advancing. Three other towns out in the County now have monthly recycling drives due to the initiation and participation of members on our board who represent those areas. In addition to all of the above mentioned waste reduction programs this year, we participated in a three day business Expo in Conway with an outstanding booth promoting recycling. We do participate in an Ink Jet Recycling program. Back to top | |
| Community Involvement and Leverageing Resources | |
| We are a non-profit organization, with a totally volunteer 24 member Board of Directors representing Faulkner County and an additional general membership of fifty. Our actual budget of cash expended on projects and administration this year was $15,000.00. We have an arrangement with the City of Conway to have the Recycling Coordinator serve as our Executive Coordinator as well. Since the programs are so intertwined, we made a proposal to the Mayor and Sanitation Director three years ago to allow this, and it is working beautifully. We have her services, an office at the Sanitation Department, and other amenities at no cost to us. We do provide our own phone line, and send her to KAB and Keep Arkansas Conferences at our expense. We take no other money from the city or county. When we started our Organization in 1998, we were able to get a $50,000.00 matching grant from the State Legislature for start up funds. That funding has been our base for operation for 5 years, and we still have $22,000.00 of it left, because for most all of our projects through the years we have been able to get donations of cash, in-kind and partnerships to fund them. The County does give us the service of handling all of our accounting and banking of our funds, but we do have it completely separate from any other County monies. As mentioned above, we did receive a $10,000 grant through an application from our organization this year for the Hazard and Electronic Waste Program, however the money went to the Sanitation Department to handle and never into our account. All of our projects require volunteer help, which is furnished by our board members and others that we recruit from the communities. We do consistently involve volunteers from businesses, schools, government agencies, and citizens from throughout the county in our projects and programs. We had a total of 6,689 volunteer hours on projects for a dollar value of $479,149.14 this fiscal year and $42,743.05 of in-kind goods and services given by businesses, civic groups, and institutions. We received private/non-government cash contributions from membership donations and business donations totaling $7,146.33. From our Ink Jet Recycling program, we received $194.56. Services that we received from city/county government are estimated at $20,400.00. Back to top | |
| Media/Public Awareness | |
| We are very lucky to have the continuing and constant support of our local paper the Log Cabin Democrat. They willing publicize all of our projects most often with front page coverage, and could really be considered a partner in practically everything we do. We have paid for a few ads just to be fair to them, but most of the time the coverage they give us is so complete that ads are not necessary. Our local Cable Company has run PSA’s on many of their channels for our Cleanups, the Hazard and Electronic Waste Drive, and the Can Your Butts Campaign. In addition to these sources of publication, we develop and distribute flyers on most of our projects, we have a Quarterly Newsletter called “Chapter Chatter” that gives current information about our projects, and a professionally printed brochure that are made available to the public. We also have a website and periodically put articles in the Chamber of Commerce News Letters, and the County Extension News Letter. In one town we are able to send out flyers about the cleanups and recycling programs in the water bills. We have litter bags and litter prevention, and recycling educational materials that we hand out at events and when we have environmental education booths or presentations. Back to top | |
| Recognition Programs | |
| At this time we do not have an Awards Program, as such, however, we do write thank you notes to volunteers and letters to the Editor of the paper recognizing individuals, groups, institutions, and businesses for their contributions. We did enter Virco Mfg. Corporation, who does so much for us and the community in the area of recycling, in the KAB Waste Minimization Award category for Businesses/Professionals and they won the National Award at the Conference last December. We have given a lot of recognition and thanks to the 18 businesses and groups that donated to the Laurel Park Liberty Garden by several written letters of thanks, by having their names engraved on the permanent bronze marker at the site. We had the Celebration on Memorial Day in their honor and to recognize and thank them. Prior to it, we sent them special invitations, ran and ad in the paper inviting the public to the Celebration and listing all of those who had partnered and donated to it. We had programs printed and handed out at the Dedication and the Celebration that listed the names of the donors and thanked them. Then following the event a letter was written to the Editor of the Log Cabin with an account of the Celebration and thanking everyone who helped. We do have plans for the future of starting an Award Program for businesses, schools, and other groups to enter by meeting a standard of cleanliness, beauty, and good waste management practices that we will devise. Back to top | |