Berea orgs clean up 131 bags of trash in a month

Dec. 30—According to the City of Berea, a few local organizations have already gotten a head start on a New Year’s resolution to keep the city clean.

Berea’s Trash for Cash program began taking applications in November, giving nonprofit organizations the chance to earn some money to keep the streets of Berea clean.

While the program got a late start this year, GIS Technician Matthew Thomas indicated that this was a growing pain as he’s taking the reins of the program, as he wanted to “revamp the program a little bit.”

Thomas explained that “all cities and counties in the state of Kentucky are eligible to apply for a litter abatement grant” where the amount given can vary from year to year, as the amount granted is based on both city and county size.

“We can use it to buy the supplies for the litter pickups…so any group that participates, the city supplies them with the litter grabbers, trash bags, safety gloves, hand sanitizer, stuff like that,” mentioned Thomas.

He added, “We can also use the money to offset the costs of running our city street sweeper as well. So basically, we can use the money anything towards anything that would go toward the purpose of decreasing the amount of litter in the city.”

Thomas clarified that Trash for Cash is meant for volunteers who are part of a local non-profit organization to participate, including sports teams and organizations. Participants must be aged 12 or older, and {span}groups can sign up to clean up to 10 miles of road within the city limits, earning up to $100 for each mile{/span}

The money obtained by the organizations who participate in the cleanup can use the money however they please.

“We’re kind of investing into two aspects of the community. So we’re investing into community organizations in Berea by giving them this money and then these community organizations are also investing in Berea by helping us keep Berea clean,” said Thomas.

As of this writing, the Madison Southern Cheerleaders, Madison Southern Dance Team, and the UP Initiative of Madison County have participated in the cleanup program, cleaning 30 miles of city streets and collecting 131 bags of trash.

According to Thomas, one group, in particular, struck him with their dedication, recalling that he had called the Up Initiative to offer them a new cleanup date due to incoming snowy weather. However, they turned down the offer.

Organizer Shelbi Poole explained, “We unknowingly scheduled the clean-up during the sleet and snow, but pushed through,…