You or your organization can improve the natural beauty of Iowa, ensuring the safety and enjoyment of all. In fact, people of almost all ages can be involved in community beautification, litter cleanup and litter prevention projects. When you pledge to Keep Iowa Beautiful, you’re not only embracing your community, you’re also gaining a high degree of satisfaction and pride. You may even be raising your property values.
Your efforts will reduce and prevent littering in Iowa, reflecting a commitment to "zero tolerance." You’ll also be helping to change behavior patterns, which will reduce taxpayer cleanup costs by millions of dollars. By investing in Keep Iowa Beautiful through a contribution of time or money, you’ll ultimately ensure an attractive community that retains and recruits new business and prosperity in Iowa, which builds pride and increases the potential for economic growth.
If you or your corporation financially supports Keep Iowa Beautiful and agrees to one day of cleanup, litter prevention or beautification efforts, you will be recognized at the level of twice your financial support.
Get rewarded for your volunteer efforts!
SHARE Iowa offers tasty, nutritious grocery packages at half the retail cost in exchange for 2 hours of volunteer service in your community. Choosing where you volunteer is up to you - any good deed qualifies.
Their "Best Value Package" includes a wide assortment of frozen meats, fresh fruits and vegetables and convenience foods - just like you see in major grocery stores. And at a savings of up to 50% off retail prices! Additional packages, including meat packages are also available. You can pay for your SHARE packages with cash or EBT/food stamps.
Iowa State Fair
Every year, more than 70 individuals staff the KIB booth in the air-conditioned Varied Industries Building. The following shifts are available from August 7-17, 2008: 9 a.m. - 1 p.m., 1 - 5 p.m. and 5-9 p.m. All volunteers receive a gate admission ticket and t-shirt.
Thanks to our past State Fair Volunteers (PDF).
To volunteer, contact Bill Jackson at: bjackson@keepiowabeautiful.com.
Adopt-a-Highway Program
The Adopt-A-Highway program, sponsored by the Iowa Department of Transportation, is designed to encourage Iowans to help care for the state’s more than 10,500 miles of primary and secondary highways and interstates. To date, only about half of those roadways have been "adopted" by individuals or groups.
Activities may include picking up litter, controlling noxious weeds, maintaining/planting trees, shrubs, wildflowers or native grasses. These roadways provide animal habitats and improve the overall beauty of our state.
For more information, visit IDOT’s Web site or contact Patricia Makovec at 515.239.1471.
Keep Iowa Parks Beautiful
Join the Department of Natural Resources in community projects to beautify the pride of Iowa—our state parks and recreation areas. Help with everything from trail maintenance to litter cleanups to bat house construction. Not only will you preserve nature at its finest and ensure a clean, safe habitat for wildlife, but you’ll also provide yourself and your community with a place to relax in and enjoy.
For more information, visit Department of Natural Resources—Volunteer in Parks.
Objectives
- Increase awareness about water quality issues that threaten the health of Iowa's water resources, and promote advocacy and action towards their improvement and protection.
- Involve Iowa's citizen volunteers in an action project that produces a tangible, quantitative result (numbers of citizens involved and quantity of trash removed, recycled, reused, or properly disposed of).
- Emphasize the importance of partnerships by involving anyone and everyone who wants to be involved, including local, county, state, and federal agencies, business, and human-interest groups.
- Show the state of Iowa that its citizens are serious, concerned, and willing to make a difference - one stretch of river, one piece of trash at a time.
Keep America Beautiful's Great American Cleanup, the nation's largest community improvement program, takes place March 1-May 31, involving an estimated 2 million people. Our hardworking volunteers donated more than 7.5 million hours to clean, beautify and improve 15,000 communities during 30,000 events in all 50 states and beyond. Activities included beautifying parks and recreation areas, cleaning seashores and waterways, handling recycling collections, picking up litter, planting trees and flowers, and conducting educational programs and litter-free events.
In 2006, more than 2 million Great American Cleanup volunteers collected a record breaking 228 million pounds of litter and debris; planted 5.4 million flowers and bulbs; cleaned 165,000 miles or roads, streets and highways; and diverted more than 37 million plastic bottles and more than 2.5 million scrap tires from the waste stream.
To participate in a GAC event this spring, contact KIB at 515-323-6507 or bhicks@keepiowabeautiful.com.