The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Norristown notches a beautiful first in Montco
First in Montgomery County: Keep Norristown Beautiful becomes affiliate of Keep America Beautiful Keep Norristown Beautiful: Focusing on conservation, education and beautification
NORRISTOWN» Keep Norristown beautiful.
Those words recently took on a power of their own when the municipality officially joined the ranks of Keep America Beautiful, the 65-year-old nonprofit with a vision that includes community education and hands-on endeavors to end littering, improve recycling and beautify America’s communities.
“The Municipal Council’s aim was to focus on things that improved the appearance and safety perceptions related to Norristown, so we decided to propose the creation of a Keep America Beautiful affiliate, which is now
“More than anything else, it’s about changing the way people think. We want residents and businesses to focus on keeping Norristown beautiful, but also the people who drive through our community.” – Crandall Jones, Norristown municipal administrator
Keep Norristown Beautiful as a response to that,” noted Norristown Municipal Administrator Crandall Jones. “Council authorized us to do that and as of last week we got our final certification and we are now the first Montgomery County affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, and we’re very proud of that.”
Brandon Ford was named the executive director of the Keep Norristown Beautiful affiliate, operating out of Jones’ office.
“We really had to put the effort in to join. We worked with the Keep America Beautiful Advisory Board and went through the necessary training and met all the requirements,” Ford explained. “The Keep America Beautiful national nonprofit has a full-fledged affiliate network. Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful is one of those affiliates, and within the state there are numerous township and other affiliates. In Southeastern Pennsylvania there are only three that I know of. There’s Keep Philadelphia beautiful, which is by far the largest affiliate, Keep Chester Beautiful, and us.”
The program is a yearround endeavor, Ford pointed out.
Keep Norristown Beautiful is focusing on conservation, education and beautification, as our logo indicates,” he said.
“More than anything else, it’s about changing the way people think,” Jones added. “We want residents and businesses to focus on keeping Norristown beautiful, but also the people who drive through our community. We’re about being clean, about being good stewards of the environment. We don’t want folks driving through here thinking it’s OK to throw trash and we want to make sure our residents and businesses are engaged in that kind of messaging and those practices as well. Our affiliate works closely with the codes department,” Jones explained. “In the Public Works Department we have right of way inspectors that work in terms of educating property owners about the importance of maintaining the cleanliness of their properties learn. Education is really the big piece and part of what we’re doing is working with the school district, starting at an early age so we (instill) in kids a long range consciousness about the importance of cleanliness and maintaining a healthy environment.”
Ford noted that the distinction of being an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful comes with many benefits.
“In terms of materials that they have already developed that we can implement in our own community, there are grant programs and funding opportunities on a corporate level they get from The Home Depot and Coca Cola that they make available to their affiliates,” Ford said.
“Another aspect is that the program is very data heavy. We went out and developed a comprehensive litter analysis where we went out into the community and identified 50 of the worst stretches of roadways where we believe there are chronic issues of littering and we rated them, with the idea that we would take that litter report and would conduct it every year,” he explained. “If a certain area gets a one (the most positive) on a scale this year and next year it’s a two or three we can change our approach by bringing more resources to that area, or pull
some resources away in other areas if conditions are improving. There are sustainable practices, rain barrel usage, rain gardens … a whole plethora of things that we can introduce our residents and businesses to.”
On the heels of a communitywide cleanup effort last April, when about a ton of refuse was removed from the community, Keep Norristown Beautiful will be partnering with the John James Audubon Society on a cleanup of Riverfront Park on Haws Avenue in August.
“Education is going to be the key to any long term sustainable turnaround in improvements, raising awareness about cleanliness in the community,” Jones said. “There are a lot of folks that are interested in partnering with us, businesses and organizations like the Audubon Society, PECO, Norristown Chamber of Commerce, that want to contribute. It really needs to be in the fabric of the community that this is important. And that’s why you create an affiliate like this, to start to put this into the community DNA that this is important.”
According to the website kab.org, Keep America Beautiful formed in 1953 when a group of corporate and civic leaders met in New York City to bring the public and private sectors together to develop and promote a national cleanliness ethic.
Among the many milestones celebrated over the years, in 1965 First Lady Lady Bird Johnson joined the campaign in promoting highway beautification, stating “Ours is a blessed and beautiful land. But much of it has been tarnished. What can you do? Look around you: at the littered roadside; at the polluted stream; the decayed city center. We need urgently to restore the beauty of our land.”
In 1967 canine TV star Lassie appeared as the mascot for an antilitter campaign.
For more information visit www. norristown.org/Keep-NorristownBeautiful or follow Keep Norristown Beautiful on Facebook.