Meet the 2022-2023 Young Ambassadors - We are thrilled to introduce 35 young Pennsylvanians who have been accepted to the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Young Ambassador program for the 2022-2023 school year. These young adults represent every region of Pennsylvania and share a passion for the environment and their community and are committed to making Pennsylvania the best place to live, work and play through volunteerism, leadership and community stewardship. Young Ambassadors will be guided through a six-step process to implement change in their community.  Each Ambassador has committed to coordinate a community cleanup and education event during their year of service. For more information about the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Young Ambassador program, offered in partnership with the PA Department of Transportation, click here.  

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Welcomes Newest Affiliates -
Keep Chester County Beautiful: On October 18, Keep Chester County Beautiful became a county affiliate of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. The affiliate will be housed in and become a program of the Chester County Planning Commission. The certification of this new affiliate marked the culmination of a public-private-civic partnership process that began with the West Vincent Litter Lifters. The Litter Lifters have been an active force, cleaning up litter and illegal dumping through Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful's Pick Up Pennsylvania program since 2020.

Keep Chester County Beautiful completed the process of becoming an affiliate by conducting Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful’s Community Assessment, which is done to gather data about Chester County in six categories: residents’ attitude about litter and community image, existing litter prevention programs, leaders of community and beautification efforts, existing waste and recycling policies, past and current community revitalization efforts and active volunteer groups. The results of the Community Assessment will be used to guide the development of a local plan to change attitudes and behaviors regarding litter, recycling, beautification and related issues.

Pictured above with Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Affiliate Coordinator, Kylie McCutcheon, are Carrie J. Conwell (right), AICP Senior Environmental Planner and Rachael Griffith (left), RLA, AICP Sustainability Director, who will serve as coordinators for the Keep Chester County Beautiful affiliate programs. Carrie will serve as the affiliate’s point person and can be reached at 610-344-6285 or www.chescoplanning.org.

Keep Cumberland County Beautiful: Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful’s Cumberland County affiliate formed in 2001 by a group of dedicated local volunteers, with support from the County Conservation District Office. They had a vision of a clean and beautiful Cumberland County and worked tirelessly as PA CleanWays of Cumberland County to complete their objectives.

Over the past two decades, PA CleanWays of Cumberland County forged partnerships with groups, agencies and individuals, including the County Recycling Office, creating relationships that have been the force behind numerous successful community events, including illegal dump cleanups, education events and multiple tire collections.

With support from the County Recycling Office, the affiliate responsibilities will migrate to a shared staffed position. Justin Miller, County Recycling Coordinator, will assume the day-to-day operations and continue to build on the many successes that came before. The group’s new name will be Keep Cumberland County Beautiful.  You can reach Justin Miller at recycling@cumberlandcountypa.gov or 717-240-6489.

Click here to find an affiliate near you or for information about starting an affiliate.

Accepting Applications for the 2023 Litter Hawk Youth Award Program - The Litter Hawk Youth Award Program is a recognition program for students in kindergarten through 6th Grade, who complete a project specific to their grade level that shares their hope, optimism and concerns about litter and inspires others to care for their communities through art, words or video. Kids can participate individually or as part of a lesson initiated by schools, home-schools, scout troops, 4-H clubs, environmental clubs or other organized groups.

In response to Pennsylvania’s new anti-littering education campaign, PA Fights Dirty: Every Litter Bit Matters, the theme is: Show Us How Every Litter Bit Matters to You. Projects include: grades kindergarten through 4 - poster; grades 5 and 6 – essay or video.

Two entries will be selected as winners in each grade level. First place will receive a $50 gift card. First runner-up will receive a $25 gift card. All participants will be recognized with certificates. The deadline to participate is January 31. Winners will be announced in April in time for your Earth Day celebrations. Click here for more information and an online application or contact Michelle Dunn, Program Coordinator, at mdunn@keeppabeautiful.org or 724-836-4121 x113.  

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Partners with #TeamSeas for Clean Up in Erie -  On September 17, Keep Erie County Beautiful coordinated 19 litter pick ups, through the Pick Up Pennsylvania program, along the shore of Lake Erie. Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful and 47 Gannon University students from the Black Student Union, Tri Beta, and a joint group from the Society for Women Engineers and Biomedical Engineering, participated in the Ore Dock Road site cleanup. A total of 632 pounds of trash was removed. Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful provided cleanup supplies, and funding for the project came from The Ocean Conservancy for #TeamSeas Project: International Coastal Cleanup. 

Pennsylvania has a New Anti-Litter Campaign, PA Fights Dirty - PA Fights Dirty: Every Litter Bit Matters was developed as part of the Wolf administration’s statewide Litter Action Plan and in response to Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful’s 2020 Litter Research Study, which found Pennsylvania has approximately 502.5 million pieces of litter on its roadways. The new anti-litter campaign is aimed at changing behavior of Pennsylvanians and reducing the amount of trash on roads and in streams and rivers. The campaign calls upon Pennsylvanians to be responsible and ensure that every piece of their trash, regardless of size, is disposed of properly. The goal of “Every Litter Bit Matters” is to educate Pennsylvanians on situational littering, such as leaving trash on the ground next to a full can or in a stadium, and to remind Pennsylvanians that litter of all sizes stacks up and creates problems. For more information about the campaign and for downloadable resources, including the PA Fights Dirty Toolkit, click here.

Members of Lancaster's Block Rite team, Mayor Danene Sorace (center) and Shannon Reiter, President, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful (far right).

2022 Litter Summit was a Great Success (held in coordination with PA Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Transportation) -  In response to Governor Wolf’s Litter Action Plan and resulting statewide media campaign, PA Fights Dirty: Every Litter Bit Matters, this year’s Summit provided a forum for better understanding how our state is moving forward with its plans to tackle litter; and a platform to share, learn and network around proven practices and innovative programs designed to achieve a cleaner, greener and more resilient Pennsylvania. Stakeholders in the fight against litter convened to learn and share about different approaches to enforcing litter and illegal dumping laws, how infrastructure affects waste disposal, corporate innovation and new education initiatives.

The national organization, Keep America Beautiful (KAB) recognized the PA Department of Environmental Protection and PA Department of Transportation for their support and collaboration with Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful’s programming, including Pick Up Pennsylvania and the new Young Ambassadors Program. KAB also recognized Governor Wolf’s office with a State Innovative Partnership Award for the state’s first ever Litter Action Plan.

Shannon Reiter, President of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Represented National Network at Vision for America - The Keep America Beautiful Vision for America event is a 30-year tradition. With the theme “Vision for a Litter-Free America,” Vision 2022 welcomed business, government and nonprofit leaders to address litter abatement from multiple perspectives. Panels focused on pathways, partnerships and business strategies that engage communities to inspire action and find solutions. Shannon Reiter, President of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, who serves as a Keep America Beautiful State Leader, spoke as a representative of the national affiliate network on a panel discussing the power of partnerships.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Welcomes Don Benczkowski to Team - Don joins the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful team after retiring from the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) as the Coastal Resources Program Manager in DEP’s Central Office, primarily working in Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Erie. In 2003, he and several environmental and community leaders, led an effort to expand the ‘Presque Isle Cleanup’ to the New York and Ohio borders, thus establishing the first Erie County International Coastal Cleanup event. Don will serve as Program Coordinator for the Lake Erie Region.