Doing Their Part to Keep Greensboro Green
By: Claire O’Brien 
It’s not every person who would spend their Saturday morning cleaning up litter they did not create,
in a neighborhood where they don’t live. Damanni Ingram explains her motivation: “I like helping out whenever I can,” she said. Elon Thomas offered another reason – a love of nature. Those dual purposes are what inspired so many volunteers to join Greensboro Beautiful’s latest litter clean-up; an event at Gateway Gardens to retrieve and bag litter in the surrounding areas.
Litter clean-ups are one of Greensboro Beautiful’s most important initiatives, says Christina Larson, Board Chair: “Everyone at Greensboro Beautiful enjoys encouraging our fellow citizens to love our roadside. When we have these cleanups, I am so impressed with the
groups of friends, neighbors, and students that step up to love their community!”
Greensboro Beautiful has organized hundreds of cleanups over the last year, and is working towards a specific goal this upcoming year: encouraging each resident of Greensboro to pick up 152 pieces of litter. Why 152? Because if everyone in America picked up 152 pieces of litter, there would be no litter on the ground in our country. This is part of the “152andYou Challenge,” an initiative of Greensboro Beautiful’s affiliate organization, Keep America Beautiful.
Achieving this goal depends on volunteers like those who came to Gateway Gardens on Saturday – volunteers from all phases of life. There were college students like Elijah Diggs, Tyreik Boyd, and Shemi Bukoye (all of whom came out to represent A&T’s Aggie Male Empowerment Network (“MEN”)), and Share Burkett and Orelon McNeal. There were young professionals, like Destiny Dye and Shane Cricket, and even children.
That’s right — litter clean-up isn’t just for adults; these events are a fun way to spend time outdoors with kids, too. Our daughter loved hunting for litter and was bursting with pride each time she found a piece to add to her trash bag. Greensboro Beautiful even provides kid-sized supplies – including mini-litter grabbers.
First-time volunteer Sam Hofstetter encourages others to give litter clean-up events a try: “This was my first time doing a litter clean-up with Greensboro Beautiful and I definitely plan on joining future events. I really enjoyed spending the time outside and doing a small part to make this park a nicer place for everyone. Greensboro Beautiful made it easy – all we had to do was show up. They had supplies, snacks, and most importantly, coffee.”
Greensboro Beautiful is grateful to each of the volunteers who gave of their time to help preserve nature and to keep the “green” in “Greensboro.” We have more litter clean-up events upcoming this spring. You can sign up here — we look forward to seeing you there!
