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[Your organization] Launches 2016 Great American Cleanup “Clean Your Block Party”,
Nation’s Largest Community Improvement Program

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Volunteers Take Action to Clean, Restore and Renew [name of community]

[YOUR DATELINE] (Date, 2016) – [Your organization], which builds and sustains a clean, green and a more beautiful [name of town/city/county/state], announced today the launch of the 2016 Great American Cleanup. Entering its 18th year, the Great American Cleanup is the country’s largest community improvement program that kicks off in more than 20,000 communities each spring.

Each year, the Keep America Beautiful Great American Cleanup engages more than 4 million volunteers and participants across the country to take action in their local communities to create positive change and lasting impact.

[Your organization], along with other organizations in Keep America Beautiful’s national network of community-based affiliates, plan volunteer events and education programs that help to [choose from among the appropriate initiatives: renew parks, trails and recreation areas, clean shorelines and waterways, remove litter and debris, reduce waste and improve recycling, and plant trees, flowers and community gardens].

[“Quote,”] said [your organization’s spokesperson].

Jennifer M. Jehn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Keep America Beautiful states, “It is humbling to see the millions of volunteers that turn out each year to our affiliate’s Great American Cleanup events. We look forward to a very rewarding 2016 with increased participant engagement, more impactful projects and to taking measurable steps to ensuring each community is a clean, green and beautiful place to live.”

The Great American Cleanup kicks off each March with events occurring from spring through fall. This year’s Great American Cleanup theme is “Clean Your Block Party”. To activate the theme, event affiliates nationwide will execute in partnership with the Great American Cleanup to end littering, improve recycling and/or beautify a community; where they will engage volunteers for the cleanup efforts and then celebrate their hard work afterwards. In addition, event leaders will encourage and provide the educational materials to volunteers so they can take what they learned at the event and implement an event in their own neighborhood.

This initiative provides the best practices, activity ideas, and online toolkits to help anyone conduct a Great American Cleanup event in their direct neighborhood. The objective of “Clean Your Block Party” is to provide opportunity to spread the word on beautifying communities, educate and encourage volunteers to build a sense of community pride and stewardship and offer experiences that help change behaviors with the goal of making a lasting, positive initiative on communities nationwide, block by block.

Here is a snapshot of Great American Cleanup events taking place in [your community] during[March, April, May, June, July]:

  • Example #1
  • Example #2
  • Example #3
  • Example #4

“As the season turns to spring, we’re excited to launch another year of America’s largest community improvement program,” said Jennifer M. Jehn, president and CEO of Keep America Beautiful. “In 2015, the work of volunteers during Great American Cleanup events returned $XXX million in measurable benefits across the participating communities. The Great American Cleanup makes a meaningful difference to the places in which we all live, work and play.”

In 2015, [your organization]’s Great American Cleanup participants:

  • Removed xxx thousands of pounds of litter and debris for safer, cleaner communities;
  • Cleaned xxx miles of streets, highways, trails, waterways and shorelines;
  • Cleaned and renewed xxx acres of parks, public lands and wetlands;
  • Collected more than xxx thousands of pounds of items for recycling or reusing, including PET plastic bottles, electronics, newspaper and more; and
  • Planted xxx trees and xxx flowers and bulbs to strengthen a community’s green infrastructure.

National sponsors of the 2016 Great American Cleanup include Altria, BNSF Railway, Dow, The Glad Products Company, Lowe’s and Niagara Bottling. Local sponsors of [your organization]’s Great American Cleanup include [your sponsors].

About [your organization]
[Your boilerplate]

About Keep America Beautiful

At Keep America Beautiful, we want to ensure that beauty is our lasting signature. A leading national nonprofit, Keep America Beautiful inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. We envision a country where every community is a clean, green, and beautiful place to live. Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful provides the expertise, programs and resources to help people end littering, improve recycling in America, and beautify America's communities. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 600 community-based Keep America Beautiful affiliates, millions of volunteers, and the support of corporate partners, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals. To learn how you can donate or take action, visitkab.org. Follow us onTwitterandInstagram, like us onFacebook, or view us onYouTube.

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