Across southwest Macon, cleanup crews will hit the streets Saturday morning around five Bibb County public schools.
Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful is coordinating the effort with District 8 County Commissioner Donice Bryant to clear illegal dump sites, litter and other debris children pass on their way to school.
In late 2023, Macon-Bibb County distributed $30,000 to each county commissioner to address public safety concerns in each district, and Bryant’s predecessor, Virgil Watkins, dedicated his portion to KMBB to help clean up routes to schools.
Bryant helped initiate the District 8 cleanup effort to take advantage of that funding.
“I just think it’s important. It’s our job to volunteer in the community,” Bryant said. “It’s a community issue to keep the community beautiful.”
Beginning at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, volunteers will gather at Southwest High School, Ballard Hudson Middle School, Ingram-Pye Elementary, Matilda Hartley Elementary and Southfield Elementary and grab supplies for the effort that is expected to wrap up by noon.
Ingram Pye is actually in District 2, but it’s just down the street from Ballard Hudson so volunteers will also pick up rubbish around there, Bryant said.
To better prepare for this collaborative effort, KMBB’s Litter Committee toured communities around each school during Monday’s Litter Index Tour that enlisted the help of each school principal to identify problem areas that need to be addressed.
The committee regularly holds tours before and after major cleanups to track progress as they did in Unionville this summer.
Bryant hopes the public will notice the effort and be inspired to keep school neighborhoods clean and set an example for students.
“They use these roads and these streets to go to school, so they don’t want to be walking in this trash everywhere, and grass is overgrown,” Bryant said. “So that’s how we came up with the idea.”
KMBB Executive Director Asha Ellen said this will be the organization’s final massive cleanup effort of the year.
Anyone interested in volunteering for the effort can register via SignUpGenius.com using Ellen’s email — [email protected]. Participants can see on the sheet where others have volunteered to determine where their help is most needed.
—Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Jarvis Fabian covers Macon-Bibb Countygovernment entities for The Macon Newsroom and can be reached at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.
