Daniel McDonald
This weekend, Baldwin County residents joined together to show pride in their community’s appearance by donating their Saturday to the Great American Cleanup.
Hundreds of community volunteers from neighborhoods, churches, schools and businesses joined each other on Baldwin County’s streets, in the community’s parks and on the roadways that lead to and from the county seat of Milledgeville to pick up trash and work on beautification projects in order to show Baldwin County as it can be when the community places importance in its aesthetic quality.
For about four years, Leroy Liggins and the residents of Felton Drive in West Baldwin have been joining together about every other week to keep their street and neighborhood free of litter.
“Some people drive through and throw their trash out on our street,” Liggins said. “But it doesn’t stay there for long before someone cleans it up.”
Saturday, Felton Drive residents took what is a point of pride on their street and shared their dedication with the rest of the county.
“When we saw other neighborhoods getting organized, our group said that we wouldn’t mind pitching in,” Liggins said. “We thought we’d take our willingness and enthusiasm for our neighborhood and do it for the whole county.”
On Jefferson Street in downtown Milledgeville, the enthusiasm of an entire church helped push a beautification project that the entire community can be proud of.
The Milledgeville Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints partnered with the City of Milledgeville, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the Milledgeville-Baldwin County Chamber of Commerce, Keep Milledgeville-Baldwin County Beautiful and the residents of the Historic District to lay sod and plant trees and other plants along the median between Greene and Montgomery streets.
“The stunning thing about this is the cooperation everyone has given,” Montgomery Street resident Dr. Frank Evans said. “The city, the Mormons and all the residents have gotten together, and I think the work they’re doing on the median is going to be beautiful.”
Much of that beauty will come from the expertise donated free of charge and from the many plants provided at cost by T. Lake Environmental Design of East Dublin.
“We’ve done a good bit of work for Georgia College & State University and for the City of Milledgeville,” T. Lake Vice President of Operations Bob Johnson said. “This community has been very good to us and now we’re out here to return the favor.”
Milledgeville City Marshal Jack Graham said the wide swath of community involvement helped energize his public works crew to volunteer their time to an improvement project that they’ve spent the last month preparing for.
“This is their Saturday,” he said as five of his public works crew members joined about 100 church members and resident volunteers on the Jefferson Street median improvements. “None of them have to be here today, but they want to be here.”
City Planner Russell Thompson took time to give special thanks to Cemetery and Parks Supervisor Ezekiel Shinholster, who he said took on the median improvement project like it was his own.
“For the past month Ezekiel has spearheaded the project with a lot of pride, and he’s done a great job,” Thompson said. “I don’t think we could have accomplished what we’ve accomplished without him.”
Across the county, much of the work being performed Saturday couldn’t have been possible without the youthful determination that poured out of the community’s educational institutions.
Volunteers from elementary school age up to graduate school turned out Saturday and throughout the preceding week to help put litter in its place.
Brian Lee of Campus Catholics and Strong Enough To Care said that he learned about the Great American Cleanup from the GIVE Center on the Georgia College campus. He, along with several other Campus Catholic members, spent Saturday morning cleaning up along Highway 49 west.
Keep Milledgeville-Baldwin County Beautiful Chair Col. John Thornton used his sway on the Georgia Military College campus to encourage almost 100 GMC students to proffer their Saturday cleaning up litter along Highway 22 in East Baldwin.
And keeping with their dedication to protecting the community’s aquatic environment, Oak Hill Middle School’s Green ExStream spent Saturday morning cleaning along the Oconee River Greenway.
But Saturday’s efforts weren’t performed by youth alone. Octogenarian Fielding Whipple helped represent the Rotary Club in its cleanup efforts on 49 west.
“Milledgeville can be very negligent when it comes to roadside cleanup,” said Whipple, who attributes much of the roadside litter to people who leave loose trash in the back of their pickup trucks and boats as they leave recreation-filled days in Georgia’s Lake Country. “Somebody’s got to do it, so why can’t it be me?”
