Editor’s note: This is the October installment of a monthly column written by the city of DeKalb’s Citizens’ Environmental Commission that focuses on increased awareness of issues such as promoting projects and ordinance changes involved in recycling, reducing energy consumption, and planting native habitat.
The city of DeKalb’s Adopt-A-Street program brings citizen volunteers into partnerships with the city to pick up trash and keep our roadsides clean.
The program also educates and encourages people to stop littering. Through the cleanup efforts of committed volunteers, visitors and tourists have a better first impression of our city and roadways are safer because of less roadside debris.
The city of DeKalb needs your help to keep its roadsides clean. Please consider adding your organization to our list of volunteers who make a positive impact on the area where they live. Just about anyone can take part, including civic groups, clubs, churches, sororities and fraternities.
To participate, each volunteer group applies for a section of road, subject to approval by the superintendent. Once approved, volunteer groups must agree to stage litter removal events from the assigned section of highway at least two times each year for a two-year period, once each during April to June and August to October timeframes.
In return, the city of DeKalb will install roadside signs identifying the volunteer group as an Adopt-A-Street participant. Groups must provide one adult supervisor over the age of 21 who shall be present during all times when litter is being collected and until such time as the litter collection operations have ceased and all volunteers have left the site on the adopted section(s) of city street(s). Also, the sponsoring group must conduct a pre-pickup safety talk with all members or volunteers who will be participating in the litter collection. The city provides safety vests and trash bags to Adopt-A-Street volunteers and removes the bags of trash from the roadside after the event.
Recently under the direction of Kyle Smith, 3M of DeKalb signed up to sponsor a strip of highway along Macomb Drive. To celebrate this new initiative, Trash Squirrels of DeKalb will be teaming up with local 3M employees on Saturday, Oct. 15 to clean up the area around the 3M facility on Macomb Drive. In addition, 3M DeKalb will be broadcasting this initiative to the 3M corporate office to encourage other 3M locations across the country to join the broader nationwide Adopt-A-Highway program.
St. Mary’s School in DeKalb also participates in the program.
With the current expansion of new businesses in the area, the DeKalb Citizens’ Environmental Commission strongly encourages you to step up to the plate and get involved with this much-needed program to make our fair city beautiful. As good corporate citizens, we all share the responsibility to do whatever we can whenever we can to do good to our neighbors, setting the example for generations to come.
To apply for your group, call DeKalb Street Superintendent Jon Ormond at 815-748-8112.
Julie Jesmer is a member of the city of DeKalb’s Citizens’ Environmental Commission and a co-founder of local cleanup group Trash Squirrels.
An earlier version of this column’s headline included an incorrect spelling of Julie Jesmer’s name. The headline has since been edited as of Oct. 7, 2022.