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Schools Hailed For Keeping It Clean

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE The Tampa Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 27, 2008

BRANDON - Students and teachers at Brandon area schools were honored for learning the three R's of contributing to a cleaner community: recycle, reuse and restore.

On Aug. 8, Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful recognized two local teachers and an elementary school for their efforts during the annual Great American Cleanup held this spring.

Teachers Jeff and Andria Keene of Plant City were honored as the Most Committed Site Captains for shepherding middle and high school students in their volunteer endeavors.

Jeff Keene has served as a site captain for Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful for five years, starting with students at Brandon High School and then transferring to Tomlin Middle School in Plant City, where he rallied students to get involved as well.

Andria Keene continued his efforts at Brandon High School during this year's Great American Cleanup. Together, the couple recruited more than 306 middle and high school students who picked up 5,160 pounds of trash during Great American Cleanup and other antilitter campaigns during the past year.

"These two educators have taken it upon themselves to teach their students about the importance of volunteerism and environmental stewardship," said Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful executive director Christine Commerce. "Thanks to their efforts, hundreds of high school and middle school students have gotten involved with cleaning up their community."

Symmes Elementary School in Riverview also was honored for collecting the most recyclables during the Students for Recycling program held in conjunction with the annual spring cleanup.

Commerce said Symmes was among six schools given mini-grants to coordinate recycling programs in their schools. Students collected and recycled plastics, paper and aluminum. Other participating schools were Eisenhower Middle School in Gibsonton, Gorrie Elementary School in Tampa, Giunta Middle School in Riverview and Lanier Elementary School in Tampa.

At the end of the initiative, Symmes had collected 63,740 pounds of recyclable materials, almost 100 pounds per student.

Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful also recognized the Campbell family as the Most Committed Adopt-A-Road Group. Family members adopted Son Keen Road outside Plant City between U.S. 92 and South Frontage Road in 2003 and have cleaned it four to five times each week ever since. In the past year, they have picked up an estimated 960 pounds of trash.

Receiving honors as the Most Committed Business was Yard Guards on Doody of Riverview. Owner Cheresee Rehart adopted her first road in November 2003 and added another in 2004, a third in 2005 and a section in front of her subdivision in 2007. Over the past year, the business has done 19 cleanups, picking up an estimated 590 pounds of trash.

Formed in 1992, Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to prevent litter, promote recycling and conservation and clean up and beautify the community.

It is funded mainly through the Hillsborough County Solid Waste Management Department but accepts additional funds to expand programs, which include the Great American Cleanup, the International Coastal Cleanup and the Adopt-A-Road and Adopt-A-Shore programs.

For information, call (813) 960-5121 or go to www. khcbonline.org.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at dlwhite@tampatrib.com or (813) 657-4524.

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