bkleppinger@amnews.com June 16, 2010
That’s because Garrard County’s reputation isn’t the kind people try to hide in polite company; it’s a reputation for litter-free, environmentally-friendly, grassroots, cooperative partying.
Garrard County will celebrate its fifth “Party on the Square” on Friday as a culmination of its annual, six-week-long anti-littering campaign. The party has grown bigger every year, and other counties are beginning to take notice.
Garrard tourism spokeswoman Karla Sefcak came up with the idea for the original campaign and party in 2007 as a way to educate Garrard residents about litter issues and promote cooperation among local groups who might not otherwise run into each other. She recently sat down with solid waste coordinators from across the state and briefed them on the success of the program in Garrard.
Mary Dickey, chairwoman of Solid Waste Coordinators of Kentucky and solid waste coordinator for Boone County, said after hearing from Sefcak, she and other solid waste coordinators decided they would like to take some of Garrard’s best practices back to their own counties.
“It got a whole lot of us pretty darn excited about doing something similar,” she said. “We all do community events, but this kind of event that offers the little contests, the music, the food ... it just looks like a wonderful way for families to spend time together.”
Every year, the beautification campaign in Garrard lasts six weeks. During that time, organizers, county officials and local residents work to encourage people to clean up the environment around them in a variety of ways, such as cleaning a roadside, picking up litter in public places, beginning to recycle or planting trees.
The goal is grassroots change, where neighbors are helping neighbors and better environmental practices are spreading naturally by word of mouth, Sefcak said.
“The idea has been based on ‘give vs. get,’ and people that take part in it, they’re giving to the community and they’re wanting to give,” she said. “I think that’s what makes it a success.”
Everyone pitches in
The campaign ends with the Party on the Square, a free event without official sponsors, put on with help from local individuals, groups and businesses. Sefcak said everyone just gives what they can to help the party happen.
“Whether it’s a pecan pie or whether it’s $200 or $600 from a business that has money, they’re equal,” she said. “We need all of it.”
More than 60 different groups from inside and outside of Garrard County are participating in this year’s party. The party features live music, dancing, food and drinks and serves an educational purpose as well.
Garrard/Lincoln Solid Waste Coordinator Chris Thomason said the ability to educate as many as 1,000 people at the party about solid waste projects helps improve Garrard’s chances of landing grant money for further improving its environmental record.
Thomason said the public education aspect of many grant applications can weigh as heavily as 20 percent on the final outcome. The beautification campaign and party help him prove Garrard’s residents are informed and involved, something grant review committees like to see, he said.
Holding parties on the square definitely has helped Garrard County land grant money, including grants that helped improve recycling in the county, Thomason said.
Sefcak thinks Garrard’s model for its campaign and party is an option for other communities around the state if local officials are willing to embrace it.
“I think it is portable to other areas,” she said. “I think that they would need leadership, with a vision of where they’re going.”
In Boone County, Dickey said one obstacle she’s facing in implementing ideas borrowed from Garrard is the sheer population size of her county — Boone is at the edge of Cincinnati and has more than 115,000 residents. But that’s not turning her off of the idea.
“We want to do it,” she said. “I’ve been doing solid waste management for over 20 years, and it’s reminded me why I do this. It’s the people in our communities that we care about.”
Copyright: AMNews.com 2010
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