The Gold Shovel Awards are designed to acknowledge Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Affiliates for outstanding program achievement in each of the KPB’s three focus areas of Prevent It!, Clean It! and Keep It!

Keep Huntindon County Beautiful for Dumpsite Tours

Keep Huntingdon County Beautiful designed a dumpsite field trip to raise awareness of the effects of illegally dumped trash.  Students follow a simple trail that was created around a local dumpsite and identify and analyze the items and its potential source of pollutants, the impacts to human health, wildlife, and recreation.  A groundwater model is used to show how geology can dictate how pollution travels, possibly contaminating surface and groundwater sources.  The students and teachers are encouraged to pack “zero waste lunches” and eat at a local park or farm, taking turns on the Litter IQ board.

Allegheny CleanWays for DumpBusters

In 2010, the DumpBusters program was created in response to Joe Divack’s daily efforts to rid the city of Pittsburgh of illegal dumpsites. The goal was to create a small crew of volunteers that would be “on call” seven days a week, 12 months a year to clean small sites, provide expertise to communities, and respond to new dumping incidents.

The program, started without funding and on faith that volunteers would step forward, blossomed as both volunteers and local residents began to recognize the good work being done by the crew.  DumpBusters now consists of 20 regular volunteers and I one year, has revolutionized the affiliate’s ability to clean up dumpsites and engage local people.  To date, they have removed 55 sites and 283.55 tons of debris from Pittsburgh and have tackled one of the largest cleanups in Allegheny CleanWays’ history.

Keep Philadelphia Beautiful for Bring It Back Philly

Bags to Blankets is a school awareness program promoting  the Bring It Back Philly plastic bag recycling initiative - a public education and outreach effort aimed at increasing awareness of the recyclability of plastic bags and wraps, and locations where they can be conveniently recycled.  Keep Philadelphia Beautiful united business, non-profits, community and government organizations around the common goal of promoting the recycling of plastic bags and wraps. Over 300 retailers in Philadelphia are now recycling plastic bags at their location. Running from November 2010 through February 2011, ten schools participated in the Bags to Blankets program. Students collected over 20,000 bags and participated in retailer tabling events to disseminate information to customers.  Over 100 blankets were donated to organizations assisting families in need in the name of the partnering school and store including the Red Cross and St. Francis Soup Kitchen.