This post was provided by PVAA board member, Kathy Gister.
Do you remember when it all started? In 2015 on Craven Thomas Road, 15+ Prosperity Village residents gathered for the first trash pick up event to help clean up our neighborhood. It was awesome and that’s all it took…the seeds were sown…we had to keep this event going!
And the Prosperity Village Area Association (PVAA) has done just that. For the next few years:
We planned these three-hour trash pick up events three to four times a year in order to keep our Keep Charlotte Beautiful (KCB) Adopt-a-Street status. We’ve officially adopted Benfield Road but on event days – and with enough volunteers – we also clean up Robert Helms, Craven Thomas, Prosperity Church and Prosperity Ridge roads.
On most of the aforementioned roads, gracious volunteers have cut the grass multiple times so that we could conduct the event. (Note: The city does cut the grass on a schedule but it’s not easy to know where they are on that schedule to a specific day as it is weather dependant.)
We’ve even partnered with some area businesses to use their trash receptacles on event days – shout out to the ABC store, Little Big Burger and IHOP.
VOLUNTEER.....it only takes ONE person to make a difference
The need for this event has increased. If you don’t see the trash while driving around, all you have to do is get out of your car and walk for 10 minutes. When I took over the planning of this event in late 2018, we discussed the need to grow the volunteer base, which was and still is a challenging task: scheduling, coordinating with KCB, trying not to obsess on Accuweather.com (Is it going to rain? Will it be too hot? Too cold?), contacting area schools and boy/girl scout groups and multiple brainstorming conversations trying to figure out what would entice neighbors to want to help.
So far, word-of-mouth promotion from previous/regular volunteers, social media posts and the promise of a free Prosperity Village t-shirt has helped to increase the volunteer base. We now can say we have “frequent repeat” volunteers and sometimes entire families have come out to participate – parents with kids – which is really nice to see! Here are the most recent statistics we provided to KCB:
# of Volunteers # of bags collected in three hours
November 3, 2018 7 16
February 16, 2019 12 19
June 15, 2019 11 22
September 21, 2019 30 55
December 7, 2019 19 31
I’m proud of all that was accomplished last year and I’m happy to pass on the knowledge in 2020 to the new manager of this event, Prosperity Village resident and new PVAA board member Linda DiTroia. Linda will do a fabulous job!
When is the next Adopt-a-Street event?
The first Prosperity Village Adopt-a-Street event in 2020 will be held on Saturday, Feb. 29, 9am-Noon.
Volunteers are required to provide a minimum of two hours of their time.
Please register your intention to participate so that we can plan for the appropriate amount of supplies.
We will be set up by 8:45am at the corner of Ridge Road and Benfield Road. You can park at Publix. Pickers, gloves and bags will be provided.
Last but not least, for the 2/29 event, all volunteers will receive a FREE Studio Movie Grill movie pass! Prosperity Village t-shirts are available also, while supplies/sizes last.
We hope to see you there!