I like calling Fayetteville home. There’s nothing like walking the streets of Fayetteville and enjoying the beautiful ̀owers, landscape, people and lovely sights,until you look down to see trash and litter. On Saturday, May 3 at 9 a.m., Bobby Hurst and Fayetteville Beautiful will conduct its annual citywide cleanup beginning at the entrance to the MLK Freeway on Ramsey Street.

“Fayetteville Beautiful is an organized group of citizens who care about their environment and the physical appearance of their community,” said Hurst, chairman of Fayetteville Beautiful. “We were in the top five trashiest cities in the state of North Carolina, and our goal was to get as many citizens as possible to make a beautiful difference in our community.” Hurst added that they did a litter index of the city of Fayetteville to assess the litter in our city and we were a 2.98 on a scale of 1-4 which is pretty trashy.

Fayetteville Beautiful and Keep North Carolina Beautiful engage and support individuals and organizations to keep North Carolina beautiful. This project addresses three core issues: litter prevention, beautification and waste reduction. The nonprofit organization’s mission is to encourage citizens to create and maintain a cleaner and more beautiful Fayetteville. The results from the nine citywide cleanups include 9,444 volunteers who picked up 111 tons of litter along 216 miles of roadside in less than 3 hours. “Each cleanup we cover anywhere from 212 to 248 miles of roadside during that morning,” said Hurst. “Everybody is usually done within an hour to an hour and a half and that is pretty quick.” Hurst added that it does not take that long to pick up litter and the Parks and Recreation Crew pick up the orange bags that same day.

The organization has many projects that it has been a part of. It helped Cumberland County Schools when Ben Martin Elementary School was hit by the tornado. “We teamed up with the school system and purchased trees and bushes after the tornado hit,” said Hurst. “Some of our volunteers went out along with Parks and Recreation and planted them with the elementary students.” Hurst added that they have planted centipede at the North Carolina Veteran’s Park and at Cross Creek Park.

Some of the ways that you can keep Fayetteville beautiful include the following: use reusable containers, recycle bottles, cans, plastics, and paper, use trash containers with tightly fitted lids, adopt a street/site and keep it clean, discourage family and friends from littering, report litter violations, encourage public officials to enforce the litter laws, provide adequate trash and recycling containers and empty them often, support Fayetteville Beautiful with your donations, or volunteer for one of their many projects.

For more information, to make a donation, or if you would like to volunteer visit www.fayettevillebeautiful.com or call 433-1587.

Photo: Fayetteville Beautiful addresses three core issues: litter prevention, beautification, and waste reduction.