IT'S SO GREAT TO HAVE WONDERFUL FRIENDS!

 

On Friday, my wonderful friend, McCall from KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL, sent me this picture of me helping them kick off their "Greatest American Cleanup Campaign."  

Keep America Beautiful is trying to make America litter free by 2026.  Oh, I hope their campaign is successful!  Can you imagine our country being litter free?

It's such a wonderful honor to be part of anything they do.  They have been so good to me.

Tonight, I headed to Arlington & Archwood.  I hadn't been there for a while, and with all the traffic, I knew it would be bad.  On my way there, I noticed the corner of Wilbeth & Arlington was messy again, so I pulled over to take care of that.

While I was cleaning, a group of wonderful friends who live nearby stopped to chat.  The little girl on the left, hiding her beautiful face, helped me pick up trash yesterday.  I wish I had noticed she was hiding.  She's so pretty.  I think you would have liked to see her.

It only took me 23 minutes to pick up 292 pieces of trash on this corner, and that includes the time I spent chatting with my friends.

The woman on the right is the little girl's mother, and she thanked me for all the work I've done in her neighborhood.  She said it has never looked so good.

Do you see all the styrofoam cups?  They just visited the Circle K, and I'm sure they didn't throw one cup on the ground.  Before I came into their lives, I'm sure there would have been a trail of cups leading to their home, but not anymore.

I went from there to Archwood & Arlington, and it was bad.  I picked up all the trash from this field beside the auto parts store.  The parking lot at the auto parts store was clean.  I wonder why they don't pick up the trash in this field too.  It wouldn't take very long now that it's clean.

I discovered that ticks must be a spring thing.  I never would have waded in this tall grass to pick up trash a few months ago.  I would have had ticks crawling all over me.  I kept checking.  No ticks today.

What a difference it makes to pick up trash!  I need to make sure I visit this area more often.  It won't take very long to clean it up the next time.

After that, I went to the Dollar Store across the street.  The trash in this area that leads to the dumpsters was unbelievable!  

I didn't take a "before" picture, because I didn't think I would clean it.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would clean it.  I just wanted to empty my trash bag.  

But guess what?  I cleaned it.

And then I started on the side of the building, and I cleaned that too.  The manager of the store came outside and thanked me.  I asked her if she wanted to see the dumpser area, and I thought she was going to cry.  Another employee came outside and the manager showed her the dumpster area.  Here are some of their comments:

"In all the time I've worked here, I've never seen it look like this."

"I can see why you've been on TV five times!"

"Now that it's clean, we'll try to keep up with it.  We didn't even know where to start."

"Thank you so much for what you did for us."

I told them five minutes a day can keep it clean.  I didn't get it all done.  I still have the front to finish, so I'll go back tomorrow.

I picked up 2,743 pieces of trash tonight, so I'm at 690,229.  Another week, and I'll be at 700,000!!!  I'm doing this!