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A blog is a web log.  For KKB it is a diary of the activity of our organization.

Friday, December 31, 2004

It's New Year's Eve and everywhere you look there are best and worst of 2004 lists.  Best movies, worst dressed celebrities - you name it.  All things considered, Keep Knoxville Beautiful has had a very good year.  Here are KKB's best and worst moments of 2004:

Best Moments of 2004

1. With the help of a lot of clever volunteers we developed a new anti-litter awareness slogan Don't Throw Down on K-TOWN.  The slogan has been received very well and we think it will have some staying power and have an impact on attitudes about littering.

2. We received a lot of support from Knox County Mayor Ragsdale and Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam.  For the first time (that I know of), both mayors gave their time to record public service ads for KKB to promote our spring cleanup campaign.  This gave our spring campaign a lot of new credibility.

3. We expanded the area of our annual Litter Index to include all of the City of Knoxville.  Next year we plan to add areas of Knox County outside the City limits.  In neighborhoods where we have been surveying for several years we saw a slight decrease in the amount of visible litter.

4. We introduced the Clean Business Program to serve as the membership program for our corporate donors.  We seek financial support from business partners who sponsor are various programs.  We also ask Clean Business Program members to commit to eliminating litter on their property and anywhere they have a presence in the community.  We also added a capability to accept online donations by credit card as a way to improve membership development.  Click here to become a member now.

5. We continue to have strong support from volunteers including our active board of directors, thousands of neighborhood cleanup volunteers, citizens who make I Spy on Litter reports, our Youth Advisory Board members, our office interns and many others.

6. We gained national recognition for our successful programs (see below) including a First Place national award from Keep America Beautiful and 3 other national awards.  Keep Knoxville Beautiful was named the top Keep America Beautiful affiliate in the nation in communities with a population of 200,000 or more.

Worst Moments of 2004

1. In August, we were notified by our largest grant provider that the amount we were eligible for would be reduced by $20,000 for the fiscal year July 04 through June 05.  The immediate impact was a staff reduction and shifting of duties to the remaining two employees.  Annie Morton, program coordinator who worked with the Youth Advisory Board, the I Spy on Litter program and other efforts left (she got a good job elsewhere).  Our board has helped raise some new funds to replace those lost, but additional changes may need to be made.  In the long run we will raise the money from a supportive community.

2. In our opinion, unsecured loads continue to be the largest single-source of roadside litter.  There have been high-level discussions among judges and the DA about improving making it easier to cite violators to court, but truck owners - both commercial and private - must take responsibility for securing all loads being transported in a vehicle.  I don't think we made much progress on this in the past year.  We believe that it will take a significant number of citations and fines by uniformed officers, backed up by the DA and our judges, to begin to change attitudes about unsecured loads.  The American Automobile Association announced the results of a multi-year study of vehicle related road debris accidents.  Litter doesn't just make the community look bad.  Trash and other objects falling from cars and trucks causes about 100 deaths and 25,000 accidents annually in the U.S.  We can do a lot better here in Knox County.

Like we said at the beginning of this blog entry - we've had a very good year and there is not much negative.  Keep Knoxville Beautiful wants to wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year and we invite all of you to get more involved in 2005.

- posted by KKB staff @ 8:00 AM

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

It's getting really close to the end of the year and we are just doing some end-of-the-year paperwork.  Thanks to KKB board member Jenny Raines who donated filling out our IRS 990 report, and made it possible for us to submit our state charitable organization registration for the State of Tennessee on time.

On the way to the office this morning, I caught this shot of our big billboard.  It is in the campus area near I-40/I-75 and 17th Street.  Some of the smaller boards will start reappearing again soon all around town.



Finally, as I was leaving the office today I caught these shots of workers installing the glass block sidewalk inserts in front of The Emporium building.  You may be wondering "what are glass block sidewalk inserts"?  Why don't you visit our office and see for yourself!



- posted by KKB staff @ 6:30 PM

Thursday, December 23, 2004

We've been asked to sit on the details for a while, but KKB was notified today that we have received some additional awards for our program activities during the past year.  Details will be announced in early February.  That's all we can say for now.

Friday, December 17, 2004

New Center for Neighborhood Development executive director Edward Eckenrod dropped in for a visit today.  It is likely KKB will be working more closely with CND in the future.  Edward understands the link between cleaner neighborhoods and overall community development.

- posted by KKB staff @ 11:30 AM
        

Thursday, December 16, 2004

The Arts and Culture Alliance of Greater Knoxville held its annual membership meeting today at The Emporium Center.  More than 100 representatives attended.  Below are shots of Alliance board president Jeff Chapman, the lunch crowd and Alliance executive director Liza Zenni.  Keep Knoxville Beautiful is a member of The Alliance.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

KKB board member and Knox County Commissioner Mary Lou Horner recorded several programs for Be Pretty Proud today at Community Television of Knoxville.  Below: Mary Lou Horner interviews Knox County Greenwaste Supervisor Rodney Rockett about the annual Christmas Tree Recycling event.

- posted by KKB staff @ 5:00 PM
       
Today was the local roll out of the FIVE national awards won by Keep Knoxville Beautiful at the 51st Annual Keep America Beautiful conference in Washington, DC (see below).  About 120 people crowded into the Rodman Townsend Gallery at the Emporium Center for Arts and Culture on Gay Street at 7:30 a.m. this morning.  Mayors Haslam and Ragsdale were there with Mintha Roach of KUB and Garrett Wagley from the Chamber Partnership.  The Mayors and the Chamber Partnership hosted the event.  KUB provided the breakfast.  



The program began with Mary Lou Horner giving a historical account of the founding of Keep Knoxville Beautiful in 1978.  Tom Salter explained what it means to be a Keep America Beautiful affiliate in good standing with local examples of how KKB meets those requirements.  President Page Pratt-Greene introduced all the board members present including: Scott Frith, Harold Byrd, Keith Austin, Tisha Calabrese-Benton, David Collins, Neal Denton, Martha Dooley, Terry Faulkner, Gary Loe, Susan Long, Sam Maynard, Edythe McNabb, Janet McGaha, Susan Rudell, Sara Surak and Tim Wheeler. Cassandra McGee, KKB's president-elect gave her impressions of the national conference and how she felt about the awards.  Tom played a radio spot recorded by Mayor Haslam for last spring's Great American Cleanup™.  (Click here to hear the radio spots from Mayor Ragsdale and Mayor Haslam.)



Tom explained why we won the Second Place Rogers Award for the Don't Throw Down on K-TOWN radio PSA campaign and played one of the radio ads recorded by Gunner of WIVK.  (Click here to hear all three ads.)  Next, KKB's program coordinator, Cortney Piper explained the First Place Innovation Award (see below at podium with all five awards) for the Greek Cleanup.  Tom then returned to explain the First Place Beautification and Community Improvement Award won by Scott Frith and the Halls B&P for the Halls Tribute Trees.  Finally Tom explained why we received the First Place Affiliate Award, naming KKB the top KAB affiliate in a community with a population of more than 200,000.  Cortney wrapped up the presentation with a pitch for the Clean Business Program.



Above (l-r): Cortney, Fritz Massequoi (one of the Emporium Artists), Tennessee Urban Forestry Council President Sam Adams, Fritz's niece and KCDC employee Tobertha Anderson, Knox County's Grant Rosenberg, Harry Sherrod of Atlas Electric and County Commissioner Mary Lou Horner.  Below is Charlie Faulkner, board member Sam Maynard, Jim Cortese, David Massey of KORRnet and board members Tim Wheeler, Sam Maynard, Keith Austin and Page Pratt-Greene.



Below is KKB board member Edythe McNabb, Knox County Solid Waste Director John Evans, former board president Eddie Howard, board member Terry Faulkner, board member Neal Denton and Knox County's Rodney Rockett.



KKB wants to again than Mayor Haslam, Mayor Ragsdale, the Chamber Partnership and Knoxville Utilities Board for hosting the even and providing breakfast.  The event was covered by WVLT, WATE, the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Fountain City Focus and the Knoxville Journal.  Also, many thanks to the Emporium Artists who opened their galleries at 7:30 a.m. for our guests.  We heard there were some sales.  

- posted by KKB staff @ 10:15 AM
       

Friday, December 3, 2004

After the photo session, Blankenship and I walked over to the new World War II Memorial.  It is located between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.  It was about a 30 minute walk from the hotel.  Here are some nice pics from the walk.  The last picture is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  It was getting dark and I tried a lot of different camera settings to get a good shot without a flash.  This picture is pretty nice.

Finally it was time for the big awards program.  Her Honor Jennie Stultz sat at our table.  Jennie is famous in Keep America Beautiful and famous in North Carolina.  She is Mayor of Gastonia, North Carolina.  Jennie is also a national trainer for KAB and has done Knoxville's annual board retreat and did Sevier County's initial board training during it's formation just about 2 years ago.  Also at our table was our own Knox County Commissioner and board member David Collins, Keep Sevier Beautiful board member Bryon Fortner, Cassandra McGee and Tim Wheeler.  Others at our table were Allison Teeters, Cortney Piper, Mike Blankenship, Page Pratt-Greene and Tom Salter.



Lots of awards were presented, but the most stunning announcements came right after the regular program.  Mary Alice Ramirez of Anheuser-Busch, Inc. presented KAB's Ray Empson with a check for $150,000.  Ms. Ramirez reviewed Anheuser-Busch, Inc.'s environmental commitments and announced a long-term pledge by Anheuser-Busch to support KAB's programs.  Ray explained that Anheuser-Busch has supported KAB since its inception 51 years ago.  $100,000 of the grant will be made available to KAB local affiliates to support recycling programs.  

Then came the surprise.  All the first and second place affiliate award winners, including Knoxville and Sevier County, were asked to come up on the stage.  Ms. Ramirez then announced that all the 2nd place winners will receive a grant of $3,000 and 1st place winners will receive $5,000.  



After that big surprise we all went to the official winners photo session.  Pictured below (l-r) are: Mike Blankenship holding the First Place Award won by Keep Knoxville Beautiful on behalf of the Halls B&P for the Halls Tribute Trees project.  Mr. Blankenship, a national award winning Ag instructor at Halls High, provided technical and logistical support for this successful project.  Next is Cortney Piper, KKB's program coordinator, responsible for the First Place Award for Innovation in Litter Prevention for the Greek Challenge during last year's Great American Cleanup™.  Next is KKB's president-elect, Cassandra McGee, holding the Second Place Rogers Award for the Don't Throw Down on K-TOWN radio campaign.  Next is KKB's executive director Tom Salter holding the First Place Affiliate Award with Ray Empson.  Next is David Collins holding the Innovation Award.  On the far right are Page Pratt-Greene, current board president and Tim Wheeler, former president and long-time board member.



Here is a close-up of the First Place Affiliate Award:

This is the big awards program day of the conference.  A lot of really exciting things happened.  In the morning there was an Award Winners Breakfast Roundtable.  Pictured below are Preston Read of the American Beverage Association who presented new information on a national ad campaign to promote recycling called - "We've Got Plans for Your Bottles and Cans", Allison Teeters of Keep Sevier Beautiful with Mike Blankenship from Halls High and a shot of Edith Heller getting her 25 year pin from KAB's CEO Ray Empson.  

After all the meetings were over, about 20 of us, mostly from Tennessee went out to eat together.  We had a nice private room in a pretty fancy restaurant call Smith & Wollensky.  The highlight of the night was the "Cracklin' Pork Shank" which was pretty huge and probably got more laughs than any other food item during the entire trip.  The knife they supplied to cut this thing was something straight from a survivalist supply catalog.  Also, we also had a big discussion about what exactly a pork shank is.  We still aren't sure.  Pictured below are: KKB board members David Collins and Page Pratt-Greene (demonstrating how to handle a cracklin' pork shank), Tennessee KAB directors Debbie Stevenson of Morristown and Judy Patterson of Monroe County and Keep Tennessee Beautiful Marketing Coordinator Diana Fedinec.  Debbie and Judy's programs both won national awards.  Another highlight of the dinner was it took about 45 minutes to figure out how to pay the bill.

There were multiple sessions in the afternoon, but one of the most interesting was the roll-out of KAB's new website for teachers called Clean Sweep USA.  The site includes 6 lessons adapted from KAB's successful Waste In Place curriculum.  The web-based lessons have been expanded to include interactive games, downloadable lesson plans and more.  KAB's premier trainer Sue Smith is shown explaining the Garbage Pizza lesson.  Check it out here.

It's day two from the KKB National Conference in Washington DC.  It's really late and everyone is here: Dave Collins, Tim Wheeler, Page Pratt-Greene, Cassandra McGee and Mike Blankenship.  Being the president-elect for the KKB board Cassandra attended several sessions of the conference.  We are not sure what everyone else did but we expect to see them all tomorrow for the awards luncheon.  Today we heard from George Kelling, author of "Broken Windows", probably the most significant scholarly article on the relationship between urban decline and crime.  The article is credited with being the impetus behind the well-known cleanup of New York City in the late 80's and early 90's.  The "Broken Windows" concept is also featured in the popular book "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference".  We also attended President's Circle Award Luncheon which recognized KAB's affiliates for implementing programs that support KAB's national mission.  Pictured below are Allison Teeters of Keep Sevier Beautiful talking to George Kelling.  Next is Keep Tennessee Beautiful ED Edith Heller, Keep Morristown Hamblen Beautiful director Debbie Stevenson and KKB's Tom Salter - all national award winners.  Last is Cassandra and KKB staffer Cortney Piper at one of the conference sessions.