Our History - In Only Five Years Year
and
Events
Vol.
Vol. Hours
Value of Vol. Labor
Cash
In-kind Donations
Pounds of Trash Collected
Pounds Recycled
Website Hits
2004
8
480
1,508
$5,818.00
$3,250.00
$5,685.32
2441
7,500
2005
8
1,068
6,148
$52,032.80
$15,626.42
$8,956.43
12,040
22,700
2006
11
838
7,453
$55,294.13
$19,776.20
$21,866.68
8,800
4,100
2007
12
2,369
7,134
$55,299.36
$29,545.04
$56,598.00
16,850
34,250
30,000
2008
11
3,175
12,831
$54,610.28
$27,296.39
$55,971.94
11,000
219,890
47,000
50
7,930
35,074
$223,054.57
$95,494.05
$149,078.37
51,131
288,440
77,000
and
Events
8
8
11
12
11
Keep Carrollton Beautiful Accomplishments 2004-2007 - Conceived, orchestrated and funded 48 public events utilizing 5,150 individual volunteers to collect more than 47,000 pounds of litter and diverting more than 65,000 pounds of recyclables – avoiding disposal fees, using free volunteer labor benefiting a number of charities, and creating revenue for the community of Carrollton.
- Amassed almost 34,000 volunteer hours valued at more than $429,000.00 – partnering with more than 166 businesses, 10 civic organizations, 15 other non-profits, 10 City of Carrollton people/departments, Carrollton/Farmers Branch and Lewisville Independent School Districts and PTA’s, the North District Boy Scouts and both the North Central Texas Council of the Girl Scouts USA to unity Carrollton.
- Raised more than $136,000. dollars of in-kind donations; and raised more than $98,000. dollars in cash to support event planning, cleanups, recycling and environmental awareness classes for Carrollton.
- Educated more than 4,200 citizens in natural resource conservation and stewardship responsibility – quadrupling single family residential recycling, maintaining pre-draught levels of water consumption and creating a cell phone recycling program.
- Initiated Adopt-A-Spot for the business community and currently have 6 spot sponsors.
- Created a Teen Advisory Board from all Carrollton high schools and awarded 8 college scholarships to our graduating senior members.
- Held four Texas Recycles Days - partnering with dozens of recycling vendors, the City of Carrollton, Carrollton Evening Lions Club, CFBISD and all area high schools – diverting 64,000 pounds of recyclables from the landfill.
- Partnered with CFBISD, Carrollton Evening Lions Club, Halliburton, Boy Scouts of American, The Civic League and the City of Carrollton Parks and Rec. Department to hold Making A Difference in Carrollton workdays – the first year working on four homes – refurbishing and repairing 2 elderly citizens’ homes and manicuring the yards of 2 disabled citizens’ group homes; the second year we were at the CFBISD Outdoor Learning Center to construct a 225’ x 150’ Native Plant Garden (no mow area) acquiring $2,600.00 worth of “recycled lumber” for the project; the third year we installed 6 benches at the Native Plant Garden so the kids can observe, sketch and BE in nature; and this year completed mulching, sealing and trash pickup maintenance projects at five sites with the City on Carrollton Cares Day.
- Coordinated collecting recycled barrels, had student groups paint them with environmental scenes and installed them in administrative office of six schools and sponsor lobbies to recycle cell phones.
- Hosted six Texas SmartScape Classes; an Idea Exchange with Keep Texas Beautiful coordinators; an On-Line Auction; a Meeting with the Mayor for sponsors and members; Sustainable Carrollton; an Econ. Develop. Bus Tour; an Idea Exchange for neighborhood groups and initiated Green Team paper recycling with ABITIBI paying the CFBISD schools for an average of 65 tons of paper a month.
- Hosted five Great American Cleanups with hundreds of volunteers collecting 47,000 pounds of litter and debris from greenbelts, creeks, vacant lots and streets in Carrollton.
- Recognized twelve homeowners with Yard of the Month awards and newspaper recognition and recently made it possible for neighborhood groups to give their own awards.
- Partnered with Intuit and Exponent HR for five Springs River Cleanups, cleaning tons of gushy trash from the Elm Fork and Denton Creek of the Trinity River.
- Created and distributed ten newsletters educating about environmental stewardship and acknowledging a Volunteer of the Season in each.
- Launched a new donated website at www.KeepCarrolltonBeautiful.org to educate the public about environmental issues.
- Received two Silver Star Awards and two Gold Star Awards from Keep Texas Beautiful.
- Partnered with Dallas Down River, Carrollton Evening Lions Club, Trinity Medical Center and Allied Waste Services to host two and plan a forth regional Trinity River Trash Bash events with hundreds of volunteers spending thousands of hours planning and collecting tons of gushy litter and waste from the Elm Fork and McInnish Park.
- Partnered with the City Arborist and Senior Center to host Carrollton Arbor Day at Josey Ranch Lake with 400 volunteers planting 105 containerized trees, giving “foster homes” to 100 pecan seedlings donated by the Texas Forest Service, planting many acorns “like a squirrel”, drawing the “Beauty of Carrollton” and dedicating a pecan tree to Clyde R. Horn for Environmental Service.
- Partnered with Carrollton service organizations to create Community Carrollton.
- Distilled federal, state, regional and city environmental goals to create goals and initiatives for us to promote.
- Created and printed reusable grocery bags to sell to the public and make plastic obsolete.
2006
KEEP CARROLLTON BEAUTIFUL – 2005
Our second year by founder Sharon Gammon Goddard
Keep Carrollton Beautiful started the year with a dedicated Board of Directors (Jeff Weaver our Board Chair, Mark Schallhorn Vice-Chair, Doug Tobe Treasurer/Secretary, Julie Poe and Mia Simmons) and a very frazzled Executive Director, Sharon Goddard. We had accomplished much in the last year, but it took a toll on all of us. We needed to learn how to be a board and function like one - amid all the personalities and we needed to figure out how to make it all happen without one person doing it all!
Our planet was also overwhelmed - by all the natural disasters and everyone pitching-in to help those in need a world away - making it more difficult to raise funds to sustain our local commitment. We met the challenge and exceeded everyone’s expectations while giving all our surplus supplies to Metrocrest Services for the tsunami victims.
A major accomplishment of the year was negotiating Adopt-A-Spot with the city manager’s office – Leonard Martin and Beth Bormann. We would never have gotten on the same page without our silver tongued Jeff Weaver. Trinity Medical Center signed on as our first adoptee.
As we progressed through the year, we found that we had learned a great deal about promoting programs and giving successful events. In February, our Texas SmartScape classes (with Marina Giggleman, Marian Buchanan and Mia Simmons instructing) were very well received with standing room only because the City put it on their website. The Trashy Art Contest we held for the Girl Scouts included both Cross Timbers and Tejas Councils and was a big hit with the winners – getting patches, ribbons and their names in the paper!
The relationships we’d begun last year really paid off as the older Girl Scouts came to earn leadership badges by helping to plan the Great American Cleanup 2005; and the Carrollton Evening Lions Club cooked almost 1000 hot dogs for it too. We had 655 volunteers cleaning 54 designated locations all over Carrollton, collecting 8690 pounds of litter and one live mouse! Albertsons generously gave us hot dogs, cookies and t-shirts to boot. Dr. Pepper, represented by Bill Kirkland of Carrollton, gave us all the drinks and t-shirts also. Trinity Waste Services was there with roll-offs and their mascot, Mobius. Amy Weaver (Jeff’s daughter) turned out to be a great mascot for us in her KCBee costume provided for us by Martha and Joe Grizzel (some great volunteers).
We hosted Intuit’s Earth Day River Cleanup for the second year and it went like clockwork on a beautiful spring day. Trinity River Expedition’s Charles Allen brought his boats and worked with us all day. We were pleased about only collecting 1800 pounds of litter from a much cleaner Elm Fork.
Two of our board members, Mia Simmons and Julie Poe resigned with too much on their plates and we were proud to have Matthew Marchant join us for a short while after he was defeated in the mayoral race.
To further our relationships with the City and our sponsors, we were a vendor with Fuji Film USA at the Elm Fork Nature Fest and made the City’s July 4th Celebration a litter-free event. The t-shirts that Wisdom Works donated for our great volunteers from Turner High School’s National Honor Society (lead by Michael Wu) were perfect to let the crowd know who we were.
For the first time, we participated in the regional Trinity River Trash Bash with Dallas Down River and with Carrollton Evening Lions Club cooking. We had promised volunteers lunch, canoes and life jackets and were surprised by 150 volunteers! With Dallas Down River’s expertise and boats and the enthusiasm of groups like our Board of Directors, Boy Scouts, Turner’s Honor Society, churches and individuals we cleaned 1500 pounds out of the Trinity on a very HOT day in August. With heat exhaustion and swearing never to do it again, Sharon’s brain went to work on how we could have younger volunteers with more stamina – our Teen Advisory Board was born. The Board overruled the “never again” decision with Peggy Healey (our new board member who had just run for the school board and who home-schools her four children) stepping up to head next years Trash Bash. It was so hot no one wanted to eat, so we gave all the extra food and drinks to Metrocrest Services for Katrina evacuees.
August was a very pivotal time. We composed a letter trying to help the City and the City Council (Mayor Becky Miller has always been in our corner) see what value we bring to the community with our volunteers and programs. After some research, we discovered that environmental groups in other cities received -- the number of households in their city, times $0.01, times 12 months, times the number of events they hosted. We plugged in Carrollton’s 43,253 households making $5,190.36 what other cities contribute for each environmental education event provided. The Council, the City Manager and City Lawyer were not swayed. At the City Council meeting, in one more attempt to get our Community Service Assistance Grant raised, Sharon stated that we had “amassed more than 8247 volunteer hours worth 93 thousand 2 hundred and 56 dollars for the economic development of Carrollton – in just the last twelve months”. Everybody smiled and nodded, but they did not add to our Community Service Assistance Grant, leaving us to figure out how to host four specific public events on $5,000.00. If the City of Carrollton provided these events using their employees, it would cost them $102,811.95!
We celebrated our amazing women volunteers with a Ladies Luncheon at La Hacienda Ranch. We had a fun time and came up with some great ideas for fundraising and programs.
All year we worked with the Carrollton/Farmers Branch ISD (with Victor Melton) to establish a Green Team in each school that wanted to participate; encourage them to work on their school campuses for Clean Sweep for Schools; making a video for the Squirrel Brigade program with Turner’s Media Academy and filming Carrollton Elementary’s Green Team learning how to plant tree seeds and trees (Mark Schallhorn and Lela Kahn were our instructors). We established our Teen Advisory Board consisting of Michael Wu from Turner, Jessica Cravens at Smith, Minhaj Chowdhury from Ranchview and Angela Miguel at Hebron; with a representative from Creekview not far behind. Sharon also wrote several grants to revitalize the CFBISD Outdoor Learning Center planning for a fence around a “Wildflower Park”, a boardwalk out into the pond, a classroom pavillion and a director’s building with Ron Marrs of Wright Group Architects helping us with the design.
We acquired another wonderful board member, Andrew Harsch (he is in marketing). Andrew has already worked on a marketing plan for us (which we really could use!).
Texas Recycles Day was a big success with 7 recycling vendors and 87 volunteers (our Teen Advisory Board did a great job of inviting their schools) diverting 22,000 pounds of recyclables from the landfill. We unloaded more than 345 citizen vehicles!
In an attempt to give our sponsors a unique opportunity, we hosted Meeting with the Mayor. Mayor Becky Miller already writes a column for our newsletter and agreed to meet with and answer questions from business leaders who were our sponsors or were potential sponsors. It was a festive affair falling just before the Christmas rush with lots of good food from El Chico Café. Mayor Miller gave us a history of how the city had evolved and what the transit plans were for the future. Carrollton Evening Lions Club signed up as our official sponsor!
Sharon recruited or renewed 15 sponsorships (Ebby Halliday Realtors, Carrollton-Farmers Branch Rotary Club, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., City of Carrollton, The Civic League, Babe’s Chicken Dinner House, Sam Pack’s Five Star Ford, Halliburton, Green Mountain Energy, Tom Thumb, Rhoton Funeral Home, Wright Group Architects, Trinity Medical Center, Sotherby Homes and Carrollton Evening Lions Club), with some thanks to Mayor Miller’s referrals and 28 business, family and individual members, raising $17,145.00 cash and $12,509.43 in-kind donations. Sharon wrote 4 grants and created newsletters for each season. We also continued our Yard of the Month award by giving it to the Khan family. Our Volunteer of the Season award for the fall went to Martha and Joe Grizzel.
We ended our year by following the advice of the State of Texas and setting a two-year term for our executive board members -- meaning that we now have no officers until January. We have become part of the fabric of the community – people are calling from out of nowhere asking all sorts of questions. They think we’re the City!!!
KEEP CARROLLTON BEAUTIFUL - 2004
Founded January 2004 by Sharon Gammon Goddard
Keep Carrollton Beautiful was wrought out of a strong passion for the environment and a third-generation desire to serve the community of Carrollton. While networking at an EPA Environmental Educator's Roundtable, Sharon Goddard made the decision to create an affiliate of Keep Texas Beautiful. The rest is the history of Keep Carrollton Beautiful.
In an attempt to partner with the City of Carrollton, Sharon proposed Keep Carrollton Beautiful to Leonard Martin, the City Manager in February of 2004. Upon receiving a cool reception but some encouragement to "see what you can do in two years", she calmly presented the photos of 10 commercial dump sites within the city limits. Mr. Martin was more interested in these, being sure she didn't leave without giving him the offending addresses.
Since the City didn't want the program, Sharon began calling everyone with whom she had ever spoken in Carrollton, beginning with the Elm Fork Nature Preserve coordinator, Beth Acosta. Sharon had already made a proposal to Beth for "I Am Earth's Friend" classes for preschoolers to be given at the recreation centers and knew she was in charge of many of the City environmental events. With another reserved reception under her belt, she called more people whom she knew from some past participation and people who others recommended that she call. These many, many phone and personal conversations netted much more interest and enthusiasm.
The original Board of Directors for Keep Carrollton Beautiful immerged from these conversations. Doug Tobe, a CPA/MBA who used to be Sharon's son's Scout Master; Mark Schallhorn, the director of the CFBISD Outdoor Learning Center; Diana Albrecht, the wife of The Rotary Club's president; and Jeff Weaver, the manager of the Ebby Halliday office in Carrollton. With actual people for the board, Keep Carrollton Beautiful was well on its way.
All the Keep Texas Beautiful affiliate coordinators were very supportive, especially Lecrecia Boyd from Keep Lewisville Beautiful who invited Keep Carrollton Beautiful to participate in the March 25, 2004 kick-off of the paper recycling program for the LISD (which includes 7 Carrollton schools). The recycling program was a great success and is being perfected, then we will bring it to CFBISD.
Our first Board Meeting on March 30, 2004 was really a dinner party for some complete strangers! It was clear from the first meeting that these individuals were also interested in helping the community, willing to give of their time to make Keep Carrollton Beautiful triumphant and a very unified group. We created our mission statement "To empower Carrollton to enhance our community environment" and approved our By Laws at that first meeting with almost everyone there undertaking an executive title.
The first year really took off as we facilitated events and forged partnerships.
EVENTS:
In April of 2004, for our three Great American Cleanup events, we partnered with Intuit and had 35 volunteers who spent over 250 hours cleaning the Trinity River collecting 2340 pounds of gushy, yucky trash; then we discovered that the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts were the best kind of volunteers when 41 Scouts collected 440 pounds of trash in the pouring rain; and we also partnered with ST Microelectronics and had 7 volunteers collect 400 pounds of trash from the creek behind Creekview High School.
On September 16, 2004, we revitalize the abandoned Marie Huie Outdoor Learning Center with Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. and 22 volunteers donated and planted two new raised butterfly gardens for the school and neighborhood kids to study.
In October of 2004, we facilitated Environmental Awareness Classes discussing Carrollton 'Scaping; Backyard Water Gardens; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rebuy; and Your Organic Yard with eleven presenters, and also organized Make A Difference Day by partnering with The Civic League, Senior Adult Services, Mosaic, Halliburton and the Boy Scouts to refurbish the exteriors of four homes owned by citizens who could not do their own work (60 volunteers spent 469 hours in preparation and execution of our projects).
On November 13, 2004, we held our first Texas Recycles Day partnering with 9 recycling vendors and all four Carrollton high schools, diverting 7,500 pounds of recyclables from the landfill.
PARTNERSHIPS:
In only one year, we partnered with 77 businesses, 248 individuals, 4 civic organizations, 8 other non-profits, 6 other Keep Texas Beautiful affiliates and 7 City departments to unify Carrollton amassing 3,600 hours of volunteer labor.
Over the summer of 2004, we started planning for the Great American Cleanup 2005 in partnership with Tejas and Cross Timbers Councils of the Girl Scouts U.S.A. and the Circle Ten North District Boy Scouts.
During the school year, we partnered with Carrollton/Farmers Branch Independent School District administration to coordinate Earth Day with the science teachers, create Clean Sweep for Schools with the principals and facilitate Texas Recycles Day with community service groups from all four high schools.
On September 7, 2004, Sharon persuaded the Carrollton City Council to give Keep Carrollton Beautiful a $5,000 Community Service Assistance Grant.
In December of 2004, we kicked-off our "Yard of the Month" award program by presenting our sign and certificate to the Rojas family.
As our work progressed, there was ongoing preparation for our non-profit status with the IRS and in August after many hours of revision by Doug Tobe and Sharon, we received our 501(c)(3) standing. Sharon recruited 10 sponsors and 10 business, family and individual members, raising $7,681 in cash and $10,875 in-kind donations. She wrote 8 grants, created newsletters for each season and awarded "Volunteer of the Season" awards.
We lost one Board Members (Diana) and added two new; Julie Poe, an old friend of Sharon's, Mia Simmons, who is active in the gardening and environmental communities, and then added and lost Lela Khan, a community tree and herb specialist who continues to volunteer for us.
We brought our year to a close with a warm and cheerful Christmas Board Meeting held at the Republic Title building awarding our "Volunteer of the Year" award to Doug Tobe. We had accomplished much in just one year and we deserved to celebrate!
Our second year by founder Sharon Gammon Goddard
Founded January 2004 by Sharon Gammon Goddard
Keep Carrollton Beautiful was wrought out of a strong passion for the environment and a third-generation desire to serve the community of Carrollton. While networking at an EPA Environmental Educator's Roundtable, Sharon Goddard made the decision to create an affiliate of Keep Texas Beautiful. The rest is the history of Keep Carrollton Beautiful.
In an attempt to partner with the City of Carrollton, Sharon proposed Keep Carrollton Beautiful to Leonard Martin, the City Manager in February of 2004. Upon receiving a cool reception but some encouragement to "see what you can do in two years", she calmly presented the photos of 10 commercial dump sites within the city limits. Mr. Martin was more interested in these, being sure she didn't leave without giving him the offending addresses.
Since the City didn't want the program, Sharon began calling everyone with whom she had ever spoken in Carrollton, beginning with the Elm Fork Nature Preserve coordinator, Beth Acosta. Sharon had already made a proposal to Beth for "I Am Earth's Friend" classes for preschoolers to be given at the recreation centers and knew she was in charge of many of the City environmental events. With another reserved reception under her belt, she called more people whom she knew from some past participation and people who others recommended that she call. These many, many phone and personal conversations netted much more interest and enthusiasm.
The original Board of Directors for Keep Carrollton Beautiful immerged from these conversations. Doug Tobe, a CPA/MBA who used to be Sharon's son's Scout Master; Mark Schallhorn, the director of the CFBISD Outdoor Learning Center; Diana Albrecht, the wife of The Rotary Club's president; and Jeff Weaver, the manager of the Ebby Halliday office in Carrollton. With actual people for the board, Keep Carrollton Beautiful was well on its way.
All the Keep Texas Beautiful affiliate coordinators were very supportive, especially Lecrecia Boyd from Keep Lewisville Beautiful who invited Keep Carrollton Beautiful to participate in the March 25, 2004 kick-off of the paper recycling program for the LISD (which includes 7 Carrollton schools). The recycling program was a great success and is being perfected, then we will bring it to CFBISD.
Our first Board Meeting on March 30, 2004 was really a dinner party for some complete strangers! It was clear from the first meeting that these individuals were also interested in helping the community, willing to give of their time to make Keep Carrollton Beautiful triumphant and a very unified group. We created our mission statement "To empower Carrollton to enhance our community environment" and approved our By Laws at that first meeting with almost everyone there undertaking an executive title.
The first year really took off as we facilitated events and forged partnerships.
EVENTS:
In April of 2004, for our three Great American Cleanup events, we partnered with Intuit and had 35 volunteers who spent over 250 hours cleaning the Trinity River collecting 2340 pounds of gushy, yucky trash; then we discovered that the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts were the best kind of volunteers when 41 Scouts collected 440 pounds of trash in the pouring rain; and we also partnered with ST Microelectronics and had 7 volunteers collect 400 pounds of trash from the creek behind Creekview High School.
On September 16, 2004, we revitalize the abandoned Marie Huie Outdoor Learning Center with Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. and 22 volunteers donated and planted two new raised butterfly gardens for the school and neighborhood kids to study.
In October of 2004, we facilitated Environmental Awareness Classes discussing Carrollton 'Scaping; Backyard Water Gardens; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rebuy; and Your Organic Yard with eleven presenters, and also organized Make A Difference Day by partnering with The Civic League, Senior Adult Services, Mosaic, Halliburton and the Boy Scouts to refurbish the exteriors of four homes owned by citizens who could not do their own work (60 volunteers spent 469 hours in preparation and execution of our projects).
On November 13, 2004, we held our first Texas Recycles Day partnering with 9 recycling vendors and all four Carrollton high schools, diverting 7,500 pounds of recyclables from the landfill.
In only one year, we partnered with 77 businesses, 248 individuals, 4 civic organizations, 8 other non-profits, 6 other Keep Texas Beautiful affiliates and 7 City departments to unify Carrollton amassing 3,600 hours of volunteer labor.
Over the summer of 2004, we started planning for the Great American Cleanup 2005 in partnership with Tejas and Cross Timbers Councils of the Girl Scouts U.S.A. and the Circle Ten North District Boy Scouts.
During the school year, we partnered with Carrollton/Farmers Branch Independent School District administration to coordinate Earth Day with the science teachers, create Clean Sweep for Schools with the principals and facilitate Texas Recycles Day with community service groups from all four high schools.
On September 7, 2004, Sharon persuaded the Carrollton City Council to give Keep Carrollton Beautiful a $5,000 Community Service Assistance Grant.
In December of 2004, we kicked-off our "Yard of the Month" award program by presenting our sign and certificate to the Rojas family.
As our work progressed, there was ongoing preparation for our non-profit status with the IRS and in August after many hours of revision by Doug Tobe and Sharon, we received our 501(c)(3) standing. Sharon recruited 10 sponsors and 10 business, family and individual members, raising $7,681 in cash and $10,875 in-kind donations. She wrote 8 grants, created newsletters for each season and awarded "Volunteer of the Season" awards.
We lost one Board Members (Diana) and added two new; Julie Poe, an old friend of Sharon's, Mia Simmons, who is active in the gardening and environmental communities, and then added and lost Lela Khan, a community tree and herb specialist who continues to volunteer for us.
