Summer 2024

e-Newsletter

Executive Director Report

PARTNERSHIPS – “I CAN DO THINGS YOU CANNOT, YOU CAN DO THINGS I CANNOT: TOGETHER WE CAN DO GREAT THINGS.” – Mother Teresa

I want to thank Brandon Wynn for serving for the last two years as Chair of our Keep Mississippi Beautiful Board of Directors. Brandon works for Nucor Steel/Flowood and his team of volunteers helped to make our 2024 Great American Cleanup State Kickoff a huge success with Keep the Rez Beautiful. We are so appreciative of Nucor for their partnership. Partnerships – in a nonprofit world – are key to success! This brings us to thank another great partner with KMB – Entergy. We are thankful for board member Sandy Powlett, Energy. Sandy will serve the next two years as our incoming Chair of the Keep Mississippi Beautiful board. Again, thanks to our partnership with Entergy!

I am sure all of you have seen beautiful blooms around the state. This spring, we were once again able to donate thousands of flower bulbs to communities, thanks to our partner Van Zyverden Inc. in Meridian.

Thank you to Orvis, the retail store in Ridgeland, for selecting KMB for their charitable donation this year. Thank you to our Partner, Wanda Ferguson, store manager, and her staff, for encouraging their customers to believe in environmental stewardship and supporting Keep Mississippi Beautiful.

Keep Mississippi Beautiful, Keep Holmes County Beautiful, Keep Jackson Beautiful and Keep Pearl River County Beautiful are excited to be partnering with Dr. Erica Walker and Brown University on research regarding illegal dumping sites in our state. We know that this is not an easy task for anyone and we are hopeful to gain valuable information from this research to help Keep Mississippi Beautiful.

Keep Mississippi Beautiful is excited to be kicking off our new public awareness campaign with new billboards across the state, thanks to our partnership with Lamar Outdoor Advertising. Next month be listening to our local affiliates recording their own PSA’s on Super Talk Mississippi thanks to our partnership with TelSouth Communications and Super Talk.

Keep Mississippi Beautiful local affiliate network wants to welcome our newest affiliate, Keep Saltillo Beautiful and their Director, Deanna Knight.

I am so proud of all our state award winners this year and want to thank our judges – as this is not an easy task with the amazing entries that we had - all of our KMB Affiliates are ROCK STARS! Congratulations to Byron and Senator Angela Hill for receiving the Louise Godwin Award this year. Happy that Chauncey and Ann Godwin from Tupelo were present to present this award.

Keep Mississippi Beautiful came home from the Keep America Beautiful National Conference in San Deigo winning many awards: Jan Richardson received the Sue Smith Professional Leadership Award, Latashia Millis received the Affiliate Innovation Award, and Keep Mississippi Beautiful won two State Agency Partnership Awards with MDOT and with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Museum.

Yes, it is hot outside – but this summertime heat is great for our beautiful wildflowers! As Jan & I have been traveling, we have seen wildflower blooms in many communities and they sure make our roadways look beautiful; please remember our Wildflower Trails of Mississippi program in planning for your next year’s beautification projects.

Keep Mississippi Beautiful, Jan and I wish all of you a safe and HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Remember – CLEAN & GREEN !

Sarah

KMB Awards Luncheon

2024 Louise Godwin Award Winners Angela and Byron Hill are pictured with Keep Pearl River County Beautiful Director, Christy Goss.

Chairman Brandon Wynn, Environmental Supervisor, Nucor Steel, concludes his term as chairman of the KMB board. He will continue to serve on the board.

New Board Chair Sandy Powlett, Community Service Manager, Entergy Mississippi LLC, will serve as chairman of the KMB Board for a two-year term.

Keep American Beautiful National Conference

We had a fantastic cohort from Mississippi at the 2024 Keep America Beautiful Conference. Keep Mississippi Beautiful was awarded two state partnership awards: one with the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum and one for our MDOT partnership. Latasha Millis, Keep Mendenhall Beautiful, won an Innovation Award (Dixie Wagon Train Litter Pickup), and Jan Richardson won the Sue Smith Professional Leadership Award. Affiliate leaders Alicia Crudup (Jackson), Jan Richardson (Ridgeland), and Felicia Thompson (Crystal Springs) were invited to present at the conference.

Orvis Giveback Days

Each May, Orvis retail stores partner with a local nonprofit organization to help support the important work they do. Thanks to the team at Orvis (Ridgeland) and their enthusiastic promotion of the Giveback Days program, $2,549 was raised for Keep Mississippi Beautiful. Orvis has great gear for your summer and fall adventures; we encourage you to shop at our local Orvis store.

2024 Great American Cleanup®

Keep America Beautiful Great American Cleanup® (GAC) events take place from March - June each year, around the nation. Each year, KMB, through an application process, selects an affiliated to host the state GAC Kickoff.

The Keep the Rez Beautiful team, led by director Jeannine May, hosted this year's state GAC Kickoff on May 3. With an outpouring of civic, corporate, affiliate, and community volunteers and support, incredible improvements at multiple public green spaces took place. Sites included Bobby Cleveland Park, Turtle Point, the Reservoir Botanical Garden, and Timberlake Campground. Dozens of trees were planted, several benches and waste cans were donated, flag poles were raised, flower beds were cleaned and planted, picnic tables installed, and a Little Library was built by an Eagle Scout.

We were so thankful that Jason Smith, our Keep America Beautiful Regional Director, joined us at the event!

Volunteers cleaning & greening

State GAC Kickoff Ceremony

Photos courtesy of Keep The Rez Beautiful

Some of the Cooking Team

Keep Saltillo Beautiful:

Our 60th Certified Affiliate

Congratulations to Keep Saltillo Beautiful. The affiliate is housed under Saltillo Main Street and Deanna Knight is the new affiliate director.

lllegal Dumping Reporting Tool

In partnership with Keep Mississippi Beautiful, Community Noise Lab at the Brown University School of Public Health has recently released an illegal dumping reporting tool! If you see an illegal dump site in your community, report it using the tool. A team of local high school researchers will travel to each reported site and catalog it for a variety of environmental factors such as its size, contents and soil quality. Once each site is cataloged, it is added to a real-time mapping and data portal where visitors can query for a multitude of factors such as dumping sites by size, location, environmental measures, etc.. We encourage you to use this tool and share it with those in your community! We thank Keep Holmes County and Keep Pearl River County Beautiful affiliate directors for their local assistance.

Relevant Links:

To report an illegal dumping site: https://form.jotform.com/241495365663162

More about the project:Brown U Community Noise Lab