Environmental Stewardship Regional Practices

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Citizen Participation is a Critical Component of Environmental Preservation

Informing citizens and engaging them in clean-up and educational activities can have an impact on influencing individual and community behaviors and be an effective pollution prevention tool for regions. Since its foundation, Eastern Kentucky PRIDE has reached out to 156,000 volunteers that have participated in almost 500,000 hours of cleaning up local waterways and doing environmental education activities. Residents of southern and eastern Kentucky work together to clean up their region's water. Photo courtesy of PRIDE

PRIDE hosts a variety of opportunities for citizens to become involved in their work. The organization has developed an outreach network that includes at least one PRIDE coordinator in each of southeast Kentucky's 38 counties. These coordinators make contacts with schools, churches and other organizations in their county to increase awareness of environmental concerns and PRIDE activities.

The events that attract the greatest volume of volunteers are the Spring Clean-up activities that take place across the region every April. Executive Director Rich Thomas says, "For the Spring Clean-up, we provide rubber gloves and trash bags to everyone who participates. We do a lot of advertising to get as many volunteers as possible. We also try to get our Congressman to attend." Residents participating in the Spring Clean-up and other PRIDE activities have cleared 101,000 tons of trash removed from illegal dumps, waterways and roadsides.

Other major PRIDE activities entail training young Kentucky residents to respect their environments. Thomas explains, "For the Clean Streams Initiative, we get experts from the University of Kentucky and other agencies to train teachers to teach children about water sampling. We provide them with basic kits and supplies."

PRIDE has disbursed $2.8 million in educational grants since 1997, which fund a range of activities, including school clubs initiating recycling programs at their schools, building nature trails and other hands-on projects.

Eastern Kentucky PRIDE, Inc. 2292 South Highway 27 Somerset, KY 42501 Tel: 606.677.6150 Fax: 606.677.6055 http://www.kypride.org