Keep Akron Beautiful

“Form 990 is reviewed by the finance committee of the board of directors. It is then filed after that review.”

“Board members are asked to sign a conflict of interest policy annually. The policy and all disclosures are monitored by the board as a whole.”

“The board of directors approve the compensation of the president and ceo based on current market studies and available resources.”

“Documents are available on request.”

“Kab had 26,275 volunteers who donated 762,458 hours to planting trees/bulbs/shrubs/plants/flowers, litter/graffiti removal, source- separating recycling, cleaning & improving lakes/canals/wetlands (incl. Nesmith lake, summit lake, wilbeth wetlands and the ohio/erie canal), education, environmental promotion, painting/landscaping public venues and parks, and more as part of the keep akron beautiful mission in 2017. The volunteer value-of-time invested in keep akron beautiful for the time period of june 2016 to july 2017 has an estimated value of 37.40. Meaning that keep akron beautiful leveraged community resources to return back into the community 37.40 for every 1 donated or awarded towards programming.”

“24 schoolyards and 8 community centers. Participants removed 19.27 tons of trash, 14 bags of recyclables and 91 scrap tires from public property. The akron zoo provided free admission on super saturday, april 29, 2017 for clean-up volunteers who came for a free lunch and awards ceremony planned by our volunteers and local sponsors. Summit lake cleanup stats (included above) were an impressive 5.5 tons of trash and 18 tires removed in 3 hours by 239 volunteers kab earned income contracts two contracts present earned income opportunities for litter programming revenue: one with the new neighborhood assistance department inspectors to help remove posted dumping violations from private property and a second for bi-weekly litter sweeps at 16 selected akron metropolitan housing authority (amha) developments. Through a beautification subsidy with the downtown akron partnership (dap), the agency has been able to continue flowerscapes at three summit county sites within their special improvement district. Kab graffiti wipe-out as of november 2017, keep akron beautiful handled the public graffiti eradication of 119 public properties with 35 workers. It was in 2008 that kab created a grant-funded graffiti eradication system for blasting sodium-bicarbonate at which time the agency hired a full-time supervisor to eliminate tagging of public buildings. Keep akron beautiful's graffiti removal services became available in 2010 to private citizens for a nominal fee of 50. Kab litter and illegal dumping collection programs keep akron beautiful has managed a litter and illegal dumping collection program for 36 years. Our 2 supervisors, under the direction of a full-time litter collection coordinator, canvass the city's expressways, roadsides and parks daily and year round. As of october 27, 2017, kab staff supervised 945 community service-sentenced crewmembers who removed 43.27 tons of litter and 42.4 tons of dumping from public property, while source separating 531 bags of recyclables and 615 scrap tires. In 2017, we did a pilot program with the department of neighborhood assistance and the help foundation who provided groups for litter cleanup hours in neighborhood parks. Participants were paid through their organizations' employment programs and allowed our litter crews to focus on the heavier traveled streets. Kab litter prevention and recycling loan programs kab portable receptacles are available through keep akron beautiful for litter prevention uses during civic events. Organizations are required to sign an acceptance form that they will make every effort to return the 45- gallon containers (worth around 8 each) to kab following the event to be used by others. In 2017, businesses, city and/or community members used 1,647 litter receptacles, decreased from 2016 significantly, due to baseball teams practicing in parks with bins and soap box derby reducing their litter intake. Akron area organizations use these for events like the akron open tennis championships, and you are likely to see them at soap box derby, lock 3, stan hywet hall and more.”

“Every day. The akron marathon continues to use the recycling frames purchased from a 2013 coca-cola grant written by keep akron beautiful to help them increase recycling and reduce waste to landfill. Race day september 23 2017, the amount of recycling collected totaled 5,880 pounds. The percentage of all recyclable materials diverted was 59.7%. The overall diversion rate was 87%, counting composting and food donation efforts, which is amazing keep akron beautiful staff and past interns volunteered again as green team leaders to assist at race day recycling stations. Kab environmental education keep akron beautiful, as part of greenprint for akron funding, sponsors the annual akron public schools' science, math, and technology (smt) expo and awards 400 in cash prizes to the top environmental science projects. The event is held at north high school each year in january. The chosen projects awarded were: "biodegradable plastic by a 10th grader at east high school. She won a 100 visa gift card for her project work, in which she made her own plastic and then noted its rate of decomposition. "airflow cooling different rooms by a 5th grader at the national inventor's hall of fame (s.t.e.m. Learning). He won a 75 visa gift card for his project work, which measured the temperature of different rooms before and after adding his homemade airflow window unit. "water purifier by a 6th grader at the national inventor's hall of fame (s.t.e.m. Learning). She won a 50 visa gift card for her experiment using natural resources to clean dirty water. "solar cooking by a 10th grader at east high school who won a 50 visa gift card for making a solar oven and using it to bake cookies and monitoring the progress. A keep akron beautiful board and staff member volunteered as sponsor judges. Saturday, may 6, 2017, keep akron beautiful staff participated in the akron waterways renewed blue heron homecoming at the mustill store museum by displaying special water cleanup equipment and tools available on the litter and illegal dump cleanup trailer. Attendees of the event were able to see and touch waders, telescope rakes and litter grabbers. At the event, keep akron beautiful educated people on ways they can help restore water quality through cleanups and the use of specific tools. Kab's plastic recycling program - recycling-on-the go - is available to the public for civic events. A metal frame and 2 large plastic bags are available for borrowing through kab. This began as a pilot program in 2009 and was made possible through a grant received from the nestle corporation. In 2017, businesses, the city and communities borrowed a total of 456 recycling containers (an increase from 2016) that have been affixed with stickers that show acceptable single stream recyclables that align with akron curbside recycling (smart carts). The largest amount of recycling in one venue has been the akron police department motorcycle rally, where guests can give plastic another life by recycling. Another group, the annunciation greek orthodox church in akron, has been slowly incorporating recycling at their greek fest and have seen a reduction in litter and an increase in recycling, due to preparing for and monitoring waste at the event acbc (aluminum cans for burned children) - kab is the distribution agent for cardboard can receptacles and initial liners. We coordinate and encourage new sites to collect their cans to benefit the burn unit at the children's hospital of akron and support area fire departments in their philanthropy. In 2017, a total of 43 boxes were taken. Some were replacements, but new this year was a fraternity, a school, a united way program and hasenstab architects.”

“Groups totaling 726 volunteers donated 3,123 man hours to remove 9.39 tons of litter, 22 tires and 7 bags of recyclables. Volunteers cleaned waterways, playgrounds/community centers, city parks, nature trails and roadsides groups also planted 288 flowers. Some community-specific projects: "during the last week of august, the community pride trailer was used to prepare for kenmore better block which took place on september 1-2, 2017. Volunteers used equipment on the trailer to help transform kenmore boulevard with tasks like spreading mulch throughout the site which spanned several blocks, making it one of the largest better block footprints in akron so far kab flowerscape also assisted with installing a fall garden while the litter crews removed graffiti from buildings on the boulevard and performed litter sweeps of the expressways and streets leading into kenmore. "the third phase of the neighborhood reborn project occurred over the course of a weekend in may 2017. Both trailers were utilized for landscaping in the neighborhood as well as with several vacant lot cleanups on bettie street. Keep akron beautiful litter crew members assisted with removal of debris helping to remove 4 tons of litter and debris. "through a keep america beautiful and lowe's community partner grant, keep akron beautiful received 10,000 to revitalize the elaine evans memorial children's garden, a site that was contributing to illegal dumping and other crimes in the summit lake community. The community pride trailer was used to help remove large amounts of brush, excavate landscaping, and install new flowerbeds consisting of over 402 plants and bulbs and 3 trees this project engaged over 60 volunteers from groups like, lowe's heroes of fairlawn oec, goodyear, let's grow akron, first congregational church of hudson, kgk gardening & landscape, advanced arboriculture and more”