Volunteers in Fort Worth are working to keep their streets, parks, and bus stops clean for everyone.
The Fort Worth Climate Safe Neighborhood Coalition gathered 150 volunteers in October to clean up one mile of roadway and two miles of waterway in Glenwood Park. Volunteers removed 2,240 pounds of trash and debris and filled 800 bags with litter, according to a press release sent to The Dallas Express by Keep Fort Worth Beautiful.
“[Texas Christian University] students and faculty, community volunteers, and City staff worked together to pick up litter and debris at the park and along the creek banks,” the statement read.
The coalition hosted the cleanup in partnership with TCU, Project Hope, the Historic Southside Neighborhood Association, and Fort Worth Master Naturalists, along with municipal departments, including Fort Worth Park and Recreation, the police department, and Fort Worth Environmental Services.
Free pickup supplies were provided by Keep Fort Worth Beautiful. Fort Worth locals can request free supplies for litter cleanup here.
Another recent cleanup in Fort Worth was Trinity Metro’s annual Bus Stop Clean Up Day, according to the same news release.
“About 380 volunteers cleaned bus stops throughout the city in this community-wide beautification effort,” Keep Fort Worth Beautiful said.
The City of Fort Worth assisted in street sweeping during the cleanup and provided vouchers for volunteers to dispose of garbage at drop-off stations.
The next Keep Fort Worth Beautiful cleanup will take place on December 9 in the Historic Southside neighborhood. Volunteers can meet at the Hazel Harvey Peace Center for Neighborhoods on 818 Missouri Avenue at 8:00 a.m.
More cleanups will take place throughout next year. Furthermore, residents and private groups can host their own cleanups alongside Keep Fort Worth Beautiful. More information can be found here.
Similar efforts have been undertaken in Dallas by local groups such as A Better Dallas, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Additionally, a local business organization launched a new “Adopt-A-Block” cleanup program in October to encourage local companies to take part in cleaning up Dallas.
“As we looked around this last year, it seemed clear that in the City of Dallas … there [are] parts of the city where people are coming in from out of town, and frankly, they’ve just been really dirty,” Louis Darrouzet, CEO of the Metroplex Civic & Business Association, told The Dallas Express.
“If the City is not taking charge of this [and] keeping our roads and streets and sidewalks clean … it’s our community, it’s our responsibility at the end of the day,” he continued. “If you think back to the olden days when there wasn’t this huge bureaucratic government that did all these services, they had small communities and little towns, and if you wanted stuff to get done, everybody had to do it.”
Meanwhile, a plurality of Dallas residents believe the City government does a “poor” job of keeping Dallas clean, according to a satisfaction survey published by the City.
