Join Us for Keep Iowa Beautiful's Second Annual Golf Tournament

Keep Iowa Beautiful is excited to announce our Second Annual Golf Tournament on Tuesday, July 11th at Copper Creek Golf Club, 4825 Copper Creek Dr, in Pleasant Hill, IA! All proceeds will support Keep Iowa Beautiful’s efforts to make Iowa a more beautiful and sustainable place to live and work! 

Check-in will begin at 8:30AM, with the shot gun start at 10:00AM. Individuals can register for $100 or teams of four may register for $400. Fees include green fees, cart rental, and lunch.  



Can’t attend but still want to show your support? You can sponsor a hole for $125! Learn more and register here. 

Keep Iowa Beautiful invites Iowans to join the Great American Cleanup and an estimated 3 million volunteers across the nation by removing litter from public areas during Pick-Up Iowa from April 15th through July 31st. 

New to Pick Up Iowa this year is a reimbursement program. The first 35 communities who sign up will be eligible for a $50 reimbursement for purchases made to aid their pick-up event. Qualifying purchases may include trash bags, gloves, litter grabbers, or food and beverages for volunteers. Awarded communities will receive notification on April 14th, 2023.

“Keep Iowa Beautiful is continuously impressed by the amount of time and care Iowans give to ensure their communities are able to thrive both physical and economically,” said Andy Frantz, executive director of Keep Iowa Beautiful. “We are thrilled to continue this partnership between Pick-Up Iowa and the Great American Cleanup to help Iowans take action in reducing litter and trash in their towns.”

Pick Up Iowa creates focused efforts to clean up trash along Iowa’s roadsides, neighborhoods, streets, school grounds, parks, forests, and streams. In 2022, Pick Up Iowa volunteers in 36 communities spent over 6,500 hours collecting 2,000 bags of litter and debris. 

Community members or groups are invited to participate. Organizations who often host clean up events include civic associations, schools, church groups, local sports teams, college clubs, groups of families and friends, businesses, Scouts, and others.

Sign-up now at http://bit.ly/40nN0XW. Applications are due April 10^th, 2023. Awarded communities will receive notification on April 14th, 2023.

Diamond Vogel and Keep Iowa Beautiful announced the grant awards for the 2023 Paint Iowa Beautiful program.  The program provides free paint to a wide variety of public service projects throughout Iowa.

 “Diamond Vogel is thrilled to work with many local volunteers that help build communities and enhance their communities’ economic vitality. Passionate volunteers like those engaged in Paint Iowa Beautiful make Iowa a great place to live,” said Doug Vogel, Vice-President, Marketing, of the Iowa-based company. 

“The Paint Iowa Beautiful program gives Keep Iowa Beautiful a unique opportunity to directly help volunteers improve their neighborhoods and communities,” said Andy Frantz, Executive Director of Keep Iowa Beautiful. “These projects not only help beautify the area, but they also have a direct effect on community pride and improve the economic vitality of the communities involved.” 

In the 20-year partnership with Keep Iowa Beautiful, Diamond Vogel has awarded over 13,270 gallons of paint for 1,438 community projects in Iowa.

A full list of recipients can be found on Keep Iowa Beautiful's website.

Hometown Pride Updates

Check out some of the great work happening in our Hometown Pride Communities!

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 March 30!

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:

1. Reduce the consumption of plastic bags,
2. Encourage the use of reusable bags,
3. Increase the amount of plastic bags recycled, and
4. Establish a grant program to aid parks and schools in purchasing products made of recycled plastic bags

By providing a monetary incentive for communities to develop their plastic bag recycling efforts, and directing grant awards to purchase products made of recycled plastic bags for their schools and parks, the fund both decreases plastic in landfills or as litter and increases demand for recycled plastic products.

The Build with Bags program is a cooperative effort of the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, Keep Iowa Beautiful, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Metro Waste Authority, and Plastic Recycling of Iowa Falls.

To learn more and apply, visit the Iowa Grocery Industry Association’s website: 

Social Media Submissions

Keep Iowa Beautiful wants to share your community’s good news!

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!

You Can Stop Litter!

You can help reduce litter in Iowa! 

When you see litter happening on Iowa’s roadways, call 1-888-NOLITTR (1-888-665-4887) to report littering from a vehicle.  

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) 

Reported offenders will receive a warning letter from Keep Iowa Beautiful drawing attention to their offense. This sends the message that people, like you, are watching.