About Keep North Carolina Beautiful
Mission: Keep North Carolina Beautiful, Inc. (KNCB) engages and supports organizations and individuals to keep NC beautiful. KNCB is the state chapter for Keep America Beautiful.
Our Focus: Litter Prevention, Beautification & Greening, Waste Reduction & Recycling
KNCB is primarily a grassroots organization assisting communities with active beautification and anti-litter programs, and helping other communities that want to develop such programs.
Cost/Benefit Ratio:
The average NC affiliate produces $16 in value for every $1 of public funds invested.*
Major Programs:
Great American Cleanup – Keep America Beautiful’s signature program – and the nation’s largest community improvement effort – takes place annually from March 1 through May 31.
NCDOT’s Litter Sweep – a semi-annual event administered by NCDOT’s Office of Beautification, typically scheduled during the last two weeks of April and the last two weeks of September.
Tarp Day – An annual event in which local KNCB affiliates work with local law enforcement agencies and solid waste personnel to distribute free tarps (provided by NCDOT) and litter prevention brochures at landfills and recycling centers.
America Recycles Day (ARD) – Celebrated annually on November 15. KNCB assists in coordinating many local recycling drives statewide.
Key Results:
- During 2010’s 3-month, statewide Great American Cleanup, volunteers logged 111,830 hours and collected 992,362 pounds of litter, resulting in a $2.2 million cost savings in manpower for clean up.
- The 2009 Tarp Day campaign distributed 4,200 tarps to 27 participating counties.
- A 2010 ARD event collected 84,000 pounds of recyclables in one location alone!
- Since 2000, 77 communities have been awarded $500 grants from KNCB’s Litter Prevention Contest and 69 individuals have won cash prizes entering KNCB’s Unusual Litter Contest.
Affiliates
KNCB services 31 community affiliates representing 28 counties including Bladen, Brunswick, Buncombe, Catawba, Cleveland, Craven, Cumberland, Duplin, Durham, Forsyth, Franklin, Gaston (Belmont, Gastonia), Guilford (Greensboro/High Point), Iredell, McDowell, Mecklenburg (County/City of Charlotte), Moore, Nash/Edgecombe, New Hanover, Onslow, Pasquotank, Pitt, Richmond, Scotland, Wake, Wilkes and Wilson.
Counties poised to start a community affiliate include Ashe, Clay, Lenoir, Robeson and Rockingham.
KNCB is interested in helping any community with a desire to begin an affiliate program.
Governance
KNCB is governed by an engaged Board of Directors that includes representatives of many of its private-sector partners.
* Keep America Beautiful validates this return on investment from data included in annual cost-benefit analysis reporting required of all Keep America Beautiful affiliates across the country.
Our State Leader and Program Director
Brenda Ewadinger manages affiliate programming by assisting affiliates with event participation and reporting to Keep America Beautiful. Brenda served as Executive Director of Keep North Carolina Beautiful from 2007 to March 2011. Prior to her leadership in Keep NC Beautiful, Brenda worked for Mecklenburg County for 32 years. Her expertise is in the recycling and litter prevention arena.
During her tenure with the county, she developed a Litter Prevention Plan and formed Keep Mecklenburg Beautiful. She is vice president of the KAB State Leaders Council and previously served as a board director and officer for the National Recycling Coalition and the Carolina Recycling Association.
Our Executive Director
Heather Thompson serves as Keep NC Beautiful’s Executive Director and oversees board administration, development, marketing and outreach initiatives. She joined KNCB in October of 2009 to spearhead the organization’s fundraising and marketing initiatives. As a seasoned development and special events professional, Thompson is charged with developing social media outlets for KNCB including a new web site and Facebook page. Our cause is a special one to Thompson as she worked for the NC Department of Transportation’s Office of Beautification Programs for four years.
Community Improvement Grant Winner