Thank you to all of the talented photographers who entered the Keep Iowa Beautiful 20th Anniversary Photography Contest!
This has been the most competitive photography contest in our 20 year history! Nearly 900 photos were submitted, capturing Iowa’s beauty from river to river.
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Iowa Cities: Justin West of Des Moines
“Super Moon Iowa Capitol in Winter”
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**Social Media Favorite Award**
Iowa Landscapes: Dave Austin of Ankeny
“Trinity Church Under the Stars”
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**Robert D. Ray Best of Show Award**
Iowa Water: Brian Abeling of West Des Moines
“Horseshoe Bluff”
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Iowa Wildlife Winner: Eric Williamson of Des Moines.
“Play Time”
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Iowans in Action Winner: Wilford Yoder of Iowa City.
“Helping Hands Loading Oat Bundles”
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But wait, there’s more! The outstanding quality and competitiveness of this year’s contest made it extremely difficult to choose the top photo in each category, so we added a BONUS social media contest featuring the second place, third place, and honorable mention winners in each category.
Voting is happening NOW through Monday, February 15th. To vote, check out the photos on Keep Iowa Beautiful’s Facebook page and “like” your favorite!
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Pick-Up Iowa 2021 Sponsored by Keep Iowa Beautiful |
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Don’t miss out on the opportunity to join communities across Iowa in cleaning up our streets, rivers, and public spaces!
Join communities across Iowa in participating in Pick Up Iowa in support of Great American Cleanup.
Your community may participate by cleaning up litter and trash along Iowa’s roadsides, neighborhoods, streets, school grounds, parks, forests, and streams.
Who may participate?
Anyone! Cities, community and civic associations, schools, church groups, local sports teams, college clubs, groups of families and friends, businesses, Scouts, and others can organize their members and participate in Pick Up Iowa.
When: Pick Up Iowa, will be held March 26th to June 30th, 2021 on any dates that work for your group.
What: Pick Up Iowa is part of Keep America Beautiful’s Great American Cleanup — the nation’s largest community improvement program. It is estimated 20,000 communities participate nationwide. As a Keep America Beautiful affiliate, Keep Iowa Beautiful is encouraging communities across the state to host a clean-up event between March and June 2021.
To participate, register your group before March 10, 2021. Registered participant groups are eligible for a limited supply of free cleanup supplies such as bags, grabbers, safety vests and gloves donated by Keep Iowa Beautiful.
To sign up to be eligible to receive clean-up supplies and assistance with your event, please complete the short form below:
We look forward to assisting you with a successful Pick-Up Iowa 2021 event!
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Build with Bags Grant Application Deadline: March 30th
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Have you submitted your application for the Iowa Grocery Industry Association’s Build With Bags Grant Program? You still have time - The application deadline is Tuesday, March 30th!
The primary goal of Build with Bags is to tackle an environmental concern that has been receiving a great deal of attention – the use of plastic (and to some degree) shopping bags. To address this issue, the Build with Bags program has defined four primary goals:
- Reduce the consumption of plastic bags,
- Encourage the use of reusable bags,
- Increase the amount of plastic bags recycled, and
- Establish and a grant program to aid parks and schools in purchasing products made of recycled plastic bags
The grant program is available to any governmental entity, organization (i.e. service clubs, non-profit organizations) within Iowa that purchase the items for a park or school. The items must be made of recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic (the base material for making plastic shopping bags). Those receiving grant awards must acquire the items and then show proof of purchase and payment before receiving reimbursement of the award.
To learn more and apply, visit the Iowa Grocery Industry Association’s website:
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Last Chance to Apply for 2021 Keep Iowa Beautiful High School Scholarships |
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This week is your LAST CHANCE to apply for the Keep Iowa Beautiful 2021 High School Scholarships! Applications are due February 12, 2021.
Keep Iowa Beautiful will award three $1,000 scholarships to Iowa high school seniors in 2021 who plan to enroll in an Iowa college or university. The scholarships are in honor of three pioneers in Keep Iowa Beautiful’s 20-year history: Bob Byers, William Fultz, and Gerald Schnepf.
The Byers scholarship is supporting high school students who plan to enroll and study environmental science, community development, landscape architecture or architecture (historical emphasis) or community planning and sustainability.
The Fultz scholarship will be awarded to a senior planning on studying communications, public relations and/or marketing.
The Schnepf scholarship will be awarded to a senior who has a record of community service and a desire to continue to support and contribute to the enhancement of the place they live and work. College programs could include community & regional planning and volunteer management.
Keep Iowa Beautiful is proud to continue supporting Iowa students. Since the founding of the scholarship program, Keep Iowa Beautiful has awarded $48,000 to 58 students.
Remember, the application deadline is approaching! Applications are due February 12, 2021 with notification in March.
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Paint Iowa Beautiful Grant Application Deadline is February 15th!
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The deadline to apply for the 2021 Paint Iowa Beautiful Grant is quickly approaching! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to bring a fresh coat of paint and a fresh outlook to your community. The online grant application deadline is Monday, February 15th, 2021.
Paint Iowa Beautiful is an 18-year partnership between Keep Iowa Beautiful and Diamond Vogel Paint. The program provides free paint to a wide variety of community projects throughout Iowa. Administered through Keep Iowa Beautiful with the paint provided by the Diamond Vogel Paint Company.
“The partnership with Keep Iowa Beautiful allows Diamond Vogel to assist and work with many local volunteers that help build communities, making Iowa the number one state in the nation to live,” said Doug Vogel, Vice President, Marketing, of the Iowa based company. This is a great opportunity for Iowans to improve the attractiveness and beautiful of their community.”
Kevin Techau, Executive Director of Keep Iowa Beautiful added, “The Paint Iowa Beautiful program helps increase our assistance to communities, neighborhoods, historic projects and volunteer organizations improve attractiveness and beauty across Iowa.”
In the 18-year partnership with Keep Iowa Beautiful, Diamond Vogel has awarded over 11,165 gallons of paint for 1,000 community projects in Iowa.
Don’t forget – the online application must be completed and submitted by February 15, 2021. To learn more and apply online, visit our website.
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When you see litter happening on Iowa’s roadways from a vehicle, Call 1-888-665-4887
Please provide as much detail about the incident as possible:
- License plate number
- Time and specific location (street & city)
- What was thrown from the vehicle
- A vehicle description (color, make and model)
Call 1.888.NOLITTR (1-888-665-4887) to report littering from a vehicle.
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Social Media Submissions
Keep Iowa Beautiful wants to share your community’s good news!
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Are you proud of a completed project in your town? Do you want to show off a new mural in your downtown? Did you host a fun, exciting event for your community? We want to know about it!
Click on the button below to share short descriptions of events, projects, or news from your town! You can include pictures and captions as well. Keep Iowa Beautiful will share your post on our social media!
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Your Support Matters!
Keep Iowa Beautiful is a non-profit organization and, as such, relies on your support to ensure the success of our environmental education and community outreach programs.
Donations will help KIB's efforts to support our community. Any amount is valued and appreciated.
Donations can be made online or checks can be mailed to our office:
Keep Iowa Beautiful
2910 Westown Pkwy #302,
West Des Moines, IA 50266
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KEEP IOWA BEAUTIFUL
2910 Westown Parkway, Suite 302 | West Des Moines, IA 50266
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