ALTON - The first Alton City-Wide Litter Cleanup of 2023 proved to be a big success as volunteers pitched in to help clean up the Alton area. The event is organized each spring and fall by Pride, Inc. and Executive Director Pat Stewart said she hopes the event can spread the word against littering.
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“Any help we can give this community to keep it clean, to educate people about littering, I think the more youth groups we get our here especially, hopefully they’ll take it back and spread the word to their friends and family and think twice before you roll your window down and throw something else out of it,” Stewart said.
Over 50 organizations participated in this spring’s cleanup, covering their assigned areas all over Alton. Stewart said community members are also highly involved in the event, and that she enjoys seeing residents take pride in their neighborhoods.
“The community involvement is fantastic,” she said. “A clean neighborhood - to love where you live - obviously helps develop economic growth, we’re welcoming visitors to our town now, and it’s just, ‘Love Where You Live.’ We use that logo a lot now and keeping a clean community is important.”
Pride, Inc. is a local nonprofit community beautification organization. Stewart said they regularly landscape the area around the Miles Davis statue, the State House Square, and “anywhere we see that needs picked up” - she said some Pride volunteers even carry brooms to clean up downtown areas like Third Street.
The organization is meeting on May 19 to landscape and maintain the State House Square, and they’ll also be hosting a Garden Tour on July 9. For more information, visit prideincorprated.org.
Steward concluded: “I just want to thank everybody for participating in this beautification event.”
The next City-Wide Litter Cleanup will be held this fall on September 9, 2023. The full interview with Stewart is available at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.
