Halliburton is always a great team of workers. Great supervisors too!	Good job Creekview Spanish Club!	Mehdi Dhanjy and the Hebron Key Club are a great crew!

Last Saturday Feb. 23rd, in the very cold wind, almost 400 volunteers came together for Carrollton Cares Volunteer Day to make Carrollton a better place to play. The Elm Fork Nature Preserve coordinator, Elizabeth Acosta, put together teams from Keep Carrollton Beautiful, businesses, scouts, and service organizations from Creekview, Hebron, Ranchview and Turner to complete major maintenance projects at five different locations in Carrollton. Most of the volunteers are accustomed to volunteering for Keep Carrollton Beautiful, so they took it all in stride. There isn?t much that can?t be accomplished with cooperation!

Besides Ms. Acosta, City of Carrollton employees Heather Grance, Gena Spradling, Theresa Ostrander, as well as Tammy from the Senior Center all pitched in with the volunteers to accomplish the work. Keep Carrollton Beautiful?s executive director, Sharon Goddard, and two Keep Carrollton Beautiful Board of Directors members, Diane Taheri and Cathy Henesey ?manned? two of the locations.

Ms. Acosta split the volunteers up into groups. Some, supervised by Halliburton employees, worked at the Dimension Tract to spread mulch on the trail all the way down to the canoe put-in to cover the gushy mud and picked up trash around the whole area. Others were at the Elm Fork Nature Preserve spreading mulch on trails, picking up trash and sealing benches. Others, including many homeowners, worked at each of two greenbelts ? Nob Hill Greenbelt Park – from McCoy Road to Frankford and Greenbelt Park – from Josey Lane to Woodlake Elementary School picking up trash. The largest group, including many Halliburton employees lead by Kathy Williams, volunteering for Keep Carrollton Beautiful, sealed all the benches at the Senior Center/Library Complex at Josey Ranch, sealed the fence around the ?natural area? at the library and pick-up trash from Keller Springs, all through Josey Ranch Sports Complex including the lakes and creek and down to Thomas swimming pool. What a great accomplishment in only two hours!

?We could have never been so efficient if it wasn?t for Elizabeth?s planning and coordination. She had all the supplies ready for us and everyone knew what was expected of them at each of the sites,? said Sharon Goddard, Keep Carrollton Beautiful. ?She did a great job!?

They had some wonderful in-kind donors ? coffee from Starbucks, sealer from Keller Moore paint, composted mulch from Living Earth Technologies, drinks from Pepsi ? but best of all was all the wonderful (and warm) pizza from Little Caesars. Since some of the volunteers didn?t stay for lunch, they took the still piping hot pizza to Juliet Fowler Home.

If you?d like to find out how you can help at the Elm Fork Nature Preserve, go to ww.cityofcarrollton.com/leisure/parksrec. If you?d like to volunteer for Keep Carrollton Beautiful, their next event is the Great American Cleanup on 4-19-08. Go to www.KeepCarrolltonBeautiful.org for information and registration.

Carrollton, We Really Cleanup Up!

	The Carrollton Evening Lions Club are great partners! And they can really cook some goodhotdogs.
Girl Scouts of America Troop 1348 are indispensible talet that we couldn’t do without. They make it all run so smoothly	Boy Scouts of America Troop 114 really come in a make it all possible! Lots of energy in their group.	BLIA-YAD of Dallas joined us for the second year.

On Saturday April 19th, Keep Carrollton Beautiful, with the help of it?s dedicated Board of Directors, the Carrollton Evening Lions Club, City of Carrollton and 300 volunteers – cleaned the whole community. If you were out for the beautiful day, you probably saw teams of volunteers picking up trash out in fields, green belts and along creeks and train tracks. The numbers aren?t in yet but they filled a half of a 30-yard dumpster!

This was Keep Carrollton Beautiful?s fifth annual Great American Cleanup / Don?t? Mess With Texas Trash-Off and the event awareness has been building steadily. The kids and their committed leaders from Girl Scout Troop 1348 and Boy Scout Troop 114 are veteran volunteers for this event; helping with the planning each year. Keep Carrollton Beautiful?s Teen Advisory Board members pitched in to bring community service organizations from both Hebron and Creekview.

Making ?mass feeding? possible is the Carrollton Evening Lions Club. Swarms of gold vests could be seen carrying grills, cooking and passing out hot dogs to the hungry volunteers.

?Our in-kind donors make an event this large possible. Without Cadbury-Schweppes, Albertson, United Party Rental Center, Allied Waste Services, Frito-Lay, Tom Thumb and Trinity Medical Center, we would not be able to accommodate the trash and our volunteers,? said Sharon Goddard.

Environmental Educators provided games, specimens and demonstrations – informing everyone. Many were surprised to learn how long it takes to decompose everyday trash, like 75 years for disposable diapers, 10-12 years for cigarette butts, and NEVER for styrofoam.

The participants also learned about how they can create their own Backyard Wildlife Habitat to provide migration corridors for birds. Beneficial Aquatic bugs were on display. There were ?found? natural specimens from the Elm Fork Nature Preserve. And a stormwater Enviro-Scape showed everyone how pesticide run-off from your yard can pollute creeks and lakes.

During the Great American Cleanup, Keep Carrollton Beautiful not only holds this event each year; but assists groups cleaning all 6 Adopt-A-Spots, schools with Earth Day Celebrations, and a Trinity River cleanup in Carrollton. This year many schools and neighborhood groups also cleaned.

?What we notice is that the railroads aren?t very good neighbors. They are responsible for trash along their own tracks, but that?s where we pick up the most,? said the Director.

The City of Carrollton is deciding how to fund Keep Carrollton Beautiful right now. Please let your City Council person know how important you think their programs are. Keep Carrollton Beautiful wants to continue to provide you with a place to plug into the community.

If you?d like to see how you can help or have a project in mind, go to www.KeepCarrolltonBeautiful.org. Thank you to everyone who came out to the make the Great American Cleanup a great success!