Keep Apopka Beautiful
About the Program
The City of Apopka is excited to announce that we are in the process of becoming a Keep America Beautiful Affiliate!
Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful is a leading national nonprofit that inspires and educates people to take action to improve and beautify their community.
Keep America Beautiful provides the expertise, programs and resources to help end littering, improve recycling, and beautify America’s communities. Behavior change is the cornerstone focus.
By becoming a Keep America Beautiful affiliate, benefits to Apopka include but are not limited to: Improving outreach and participation in the City’s Adopt-A-Road Program; encouraging more local schools to participate in the City’s Plastic Bag Recycling Partnership; reducing litter; waste and graffiti; and gaining access to Community Impact Grants.
As part of the affiliate process, the City must identify a team of 6-9 community representatives from business, government and civic sectors to assist in the process to form the affiliate. Ideally, representatives will be knowledgeable in the following areas: Financial management; business and organizational administration and governance; City/County government; and geography of the community. A Team Leader will also be identified.
Team members completed the initial Community Training Workshop in May 2022. Following the training, the Team was instructed to complete the following tasks before participating in the Keep America Beautiful Affiliate Training and officially establishing Keep Apopka Beautiful.
Keep America Beautiful Fun Fact: For each $1 invested by local governments, an average of $14.55 is returned in community benefits!
Visit the Keep America Beautiful Website to learn about this organization.
Want to be a part of what Apopka is doing with Keep Apopka Beautiful? The Community Team needs your help with the Community Appearance Index and Focus Area Survey! Join our Community Team or volunteer to serve with Task Groups 2 and 3.
If you are interested in assisting the Community Team or have questions or concerns, please contact the City of Apopka at 407-703-1700.
Task Group 1: Organizational Structure
Ensuring long-term success for the affiliate.
Tasks Include:
- Draft Governance Documents
- Mission Statement
- Affiliate Logo
- Determine Board Member Responsibilities
- Member Recruitment
- One-year Operational Budget
Task Group 2: Community Appearance Index - Litter Index
This is the Visual assessment of the community.
This group will:
- Prepare Local Scoring Map
- Perform Little Index Scale 1 (Minimal/No Litter) to 4 (Extremely Littered) of selected sites
- Conduct Index
- Compile Data
This Scale 1 example shows minimal or no litter.
This Scale 4 example shows extremely littered.
Task Group 3: Focus Area Survey
Fact-gathering document that examines current educational programs relating to litter prevention, beautification, and community greening, waste reduction and recycling, existing ordinances, enforcement practices, and available resources and tools.
Including:
- Identify relevant resources in the city, businesses, and civic organizations, complete and compile survey.
- Survey Question Examples Include:
- What ordinances/codes/regulations exist in your community related to litter prevention?
- Does any business or other entity have written policies related to litter prevention?
- Has your community recognized anyone for beautification efforts in the past three years?
- Where do you notice the accumulation of litter?
Task Group 4: Observations & Recommendations
- Task Groups 2 & 3 will work together to complete observations about what was learned from the Community Appearance Index and Focus Area Survey and may provide recommendations. Observations and Recommendations will be used in the KAB Affiliate Training Workshop.
- Question Example: What are the consequences for negative behavior in your community? Incentives and/or enforcement? Are policies being enforced?