Programs
The KAB Commission has created programs to reduce litter, encourage recycling, and promote beautification and community improvement that have generated enthusiastic response from community groups and local governments throughout the state. The Keep Arkansas Beautiful Foundation is challenged with sustaining this positive impact by building perpetual capital to underwrite programs that cannot be funded by the 1 percent of the eighth-cent Conservation Tax, that is the Commission’s sole source of funding.
Keep Arkansas Beautiful proudly promotes two annual cleanups – the Great American Cleanup and the Great Arkansas Cleanup. Our goal is to turn the entire state "clean", by sponsoring a cleanup in every single county in Arkansas! Thank you to 75 counties who took the Go Clean Challenge this fall during the GAC! Interested in finding a volunteer event near you? Click here to visit our Calendar of Events.
Keep America Beautiful’s Great American Cleanup takes place each spring from March through May and is the nation’s largest community improvement effort. Thousands of Arkansas volunteers clean up and beautify their communities before the tourism and vacation seasons begin. The Great Arkansas Cleanup takes place each fall from September (the first Saturday after Labor Day) through October. Thousands of Arkansans remove tons of trash from our state’s roadways, shorelines, parks, and public areas during this statewide community improvement campaign. Link on our website: https://keeparkansasbeautiful.com/get-involved/cleanups/
Our Litter Grabber Program empowers individuals to take action to help keep their communities clean. Arkansas residents can request a free Cleanup Kit, which includes trash bags, gloves, and a t-shirt, to help mobilize individual volunteers across the state.
Whether it’s picking up litter in your neighborhood on a walk, bringing along a trash bag on your next hike, or going to the park to do a quick cleanup, we believe every person can help play a part in reducing and preventing litter. Link on website: https://keeparkansasbeautiful.com/get-involved/litter-grabber-program/
Keep Arkansas Beautiful identified a real need to start litter prevention and education with Arkansans at an early age to promote positive learned behaviors as they grow up. With that, KAB developed and launched its award-winning Otto the Otter Youth Education Program providing free educational materials for teachers, youth groups and communities to integrate litter lessons inside and outside the classroom.
The program offers a storybook, workbook, coloring book, cartoon, other educational materials and an upcoming second storybook. KAB’s mascot Otto the Otter and KAB team travel across the state making appearances at community events, in schools and other public appearances. Link on website: https://keeparkansasbeautiful.com/for-teachers/classroom-resources/
As food packaging is second only to cigarette butts in littered items worldwide, Keep Arkansas Beautiful's newest initiative will help Arkansas businesses join in the fight to combat litter in The Natural State. The Eats & Clean Streets initiative provides businesses that sell any type of to-go food with signage they can install on their properties to remind customers to not litter their business property or our state.
This initiative is open to all sit-down restaurants, fast-food restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores. Link on website: https://keeparkansasbeautiful.com/community-resources/eats-clean-streets/
