The Keep Blanco Beautiful directors and members wish everyone a Happy New Year. In 2007 we will begin our 8th year and we hope to see our vision of Blanco being free of litter on the streets and sidewalks and junk cars and trash in the yards become a reality. We would like to thank all of the many volunteers who have stayed and worked so hard to help Make Blanco Beautiful and our faithful supporters who have donated to these efforts. Our commitment to you is to continue to work with the City of Blanco to make this vision come true. We will continue to request that the city council and Mayor Rodrique enforce the state and city environmental laws, codes and ordinances that will "Make Blanco
Beautiful", safe and healthy.
We expect 2007 to be a very busy year.
Our beautification group is starting off the year without Judy. She will be having knee replacement surgery on the 3rd and we all wish her the very best and hope for a very speedy recovery. She has left instructions for the beautification projects with Glenn Johnson, Tom Philips and Glenn Page for the next two months.
Since they very seldom miss a week working with Judy, I am sure that its been left in very good hands. They are taking down the Christmas lights today and will try to patch the lines that the squirrels ate. In 2007 we will continue to work for a "Trail of Lights". Blanco is the first town on the Hill Country Trail of Lights and the tourists pass through because we have so little to stop for.
They will plant the tree in honor of the 2007 Arbor Day Poster winner, Anna Killingsworth, this month. Arbor Day is on April 27, 2007.
Our middle school science teacher, Pam Meyer, would like for us to come back and work with her students on the middle school flower beds this spring. One of our best memories was working the whole day with each
7th grade class cleaning their flower beds in 2004.
Mr. Kvapil, principal of the elementary school would also like for us to spend time with their students on some projects this year. Mr. Boyd will be retiring at the end of this school year as superintendent. His goal with KBB is to have the KAB "Waste In Place" curriculum in the elementary and middle school by the 2007-2008 school year.
The Great American Cleanup will be from March 1 through May 31. Our 7th annual Keep Blanco Beautiful City wide "Trash Off" will be held on April 14. Wayne and Martha Gosnell and James and Pam Whitworth will organize and lead our first annual river cleanup in conjunction with the "Trash Off".
We will start on early volunteer sign up for youth organizations so that we can have our free T-shirts ready on the 14th.
There were 2,200,000 volunteers who participated in the Great American cleanup in 2006 and 228,000,000 pounds of litter and debris was collected. In Blanco120,000 pounds of recyclable metal and 8 full 30yard roll offs full of various items was collected.. For a town our size we played a large roll in "Keeping America Beautiful" in 2006.
Our many projects are funded by memberships so we will begin a membership drive this month. You can also sign up as a member and pay the membership fee online on our website, keepblancobeautiful.org
The Treetops Ranch fundraiser that was hosted by David Key and Armando Pena on October 21 raised $5,214.66. These funds are earmarked for the Keep Blanco Beautiful revitalization and beautification of Historic Downtown Blanco. The planning committee will work with the larger plan by the Visionaries in Preservation on our decision.
There are so many great ideas, such as crepe myrtle trees around the business side of the square, beautiful coordinated pottery, benches, gas lights, a Christmas Trail of Lights, and others. We ask that you be patient so that we can coordinate our plans with a larger plan for downtown revitalization.
Come and join us in 2007!!!!!
