Commercial Appeal 3.28.10

4 GOING GREEN | S u n d ay , March 2 8, 2010 co m m e r c i a l a p p ea l .co m

By Suzanne ThompsonSpecial to Going Green

From tree planting eve n t sto coordinating communitycleanup projects, JanetBoscarino, director of CleanMemphis, is ready to get theball rolling.

Boscarino co-founded CleanMemphis, a nonprofit organization, inAugust 2008, along with Mark Lovell,

who is one of the organization’sfour board members. As far asthe staff, Boscarino is it. Shehandles everything at CleanMemphis, which she calls acommunity organizing, grass-roots facilitator.

“The main goal is to engagecitizens, businesses, churches andschools to take a larger role incleaning and greening theire nv i ro n m e n t s , ” she said.

Cleaning and greeningClean

Memphisbrings

volunteerstogether

Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal files

Janet Boscarino, founder of Clean Memphis.

The Commercial Appeal S u n d ay , March 2 8, 2010 | GOING GREEN 5

To accomplish this,Clean Memphis dividedthe city into 31 zones,with additional zonesoutside the city limits.

“The idea was to createthis cohesive group ofbusinesses, churches,schools andneighborhoods to do atleast quarterly cleanupevents, work on recycling,just anything andeverything to improvetheir communities,”Boscarino said.

The “greening up,”refers not only tobeautification projectssuch as tree planting butalso to educatingcommunity membersabout storm water issues,raising awareness aboutrecycling and helpingschools start recyclingp ro g ra m s .

“All the trash andleaves and debris that gointo storm water drainsgo into creeks andstreams, and end up inthe Wolf River,”Boscarino said. “T h at ’san issue in and of itself,

not only from a litterstandpoint, but becauseit’s an issueenvironment ally.”

Clean Memphis, alongwith its corporate andcommunity partners,holds environmental fairsand cleanups periodically.

Some of the communitypartners include MemphisCity Beautiful, The WolfRiver Conservancy andthe Storm Water Divisionof Memphis Light, Gasand Water Division.

Cargill, Coca-ColaBottling Co.,ClearChannel Outdoor,ParkIt Here and PepsiCoare among the corporatep a r t n e rs .

Larry Krebs, managerof corporate responsibilityand sustainability forCoca-Cola, said it was aWolf River cleanupproject that first drew hisinterest in sponsoringClean Memphis.

“Water being such anintegral part of our

Boscarino said Clean Memphis organizes acommunity cleanup somewhere in the Memphisarea on most Saturdays.

“You may not be able to reduce crime or bring jobs to thecity, but whether you are 5 or 65, you can help clean up

in your neighborhood.”

JANET BOSCARINOfounder of Clean Memphis

6 GOING GREEN | S u n d ay , March 2 8, 2010 co m m e r c i a l a p p ea l .co m

product, that’s a huge focus of ours, just asa company in general. Water conservancyand anything related to that is somethingthat we are very interested in,” he said.

In the six months since Coca-Colastarted partnering with Clean Memphis,it has sponsored five or six events,Krebs said, which equates to about 400volunteer hours of work.

Clean Memphis works with students,to try to get them involved in cleanupprojects organized around their schoolsand to promote good stewardship.

The group has worked with about 15Memphis City Schools, includingCentral and Frayser high schools andCypress Middle School.

To mark this year’s Earth Dayobservance, environmental fairs will beheld at two middle schools — at AirwaysMiddle on April 21 and at CypressMiddle on April 22.

Clean Memphis also helps coordinatevolunteer cleanups with students fromprivate schools.

“We keep up with volunteer servicehours, so a lot of kids who are involvedin clubs need those,” Boscarino said.

Clean Memphis works with collegestudents, too. One of the zones, knownas the LOC Collaborative, is in theLeMoyne-Owen College area and itsmembers meet monthly to discussconcerns including litter, code issuesand crime. Clean Memphis helps themorganize ongoing cleanup events.

Boscarino said it’s important to CleanMemphis that the groups remain organic— made up of people who live or workin the communities in which the groupso p e rat e .

“It means more to them and will bemore sustainable that way,” she said.“We help neighborhoods come together,but we don’t want to run the show forthem. We want to help them, guidethem, get them organized, expand theirvolunteer base, educate them, but at theend of the day, we want them to be ableto do what needs to be done.”

MemphisGrizzlies star

O.J. Mayohoists a bag

of leaves ontoa truck during

a Downtowncleanup

sponsored byClean

Memphis andthe Grizzlies

Academy lastNovember.

Brad Luttrell/The Commercial

Appeal files