Keep Amarillo Clean puts in work on Earth Day
Editor's note: Organizers have postponed the April 27 event at the Woodlands area to Saturday, May 4, due to heavy winds expected on the original date. The announcement was made Thursday night after the story below was published.
Keep Amarillo Clean organized a cleanup event on Monday on Amarillo Boulevard near the closed United Artists movie theater to celebrate Earth Day.
With volunteers, including Texas Oncology, Amarillo Heart Institute, Contagion Athletics, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, pitching in, more than two truckloads of trash were picked up.
Babji Yalamanchili is the founder and director of Keep Amarillo Clean, a nonprofit that seeks to beautify the city through community and individual efforts. Accompanied by his wife Devi, he and the group seek to tackle some of Amarillo's problem areas while bringing attention to the importance of a clean city.
“I have been working for a while to get people involved in taking pride in their city,” Yalamanchili said. “We want to set an example for the city's people and try to get more people to come together and take ownership of the city.”
On Saturday, he will have a Woodlands Area Clean Up starting at 9 a.m. and lasting until noon. Anyone who wants to participate in the cleanup should meet at the Tractor Supply parking lot on Plum Creek in Tascosa.
The Woodlands cleanup comes on the same day as the city of Amarillo's cleanup in Thompson Park to celebrate Earth Day, in partnership with Parks and Recreation. It was moved from its original date last week due to weather. Volunteers will help in collecting trash from 9 to 10:30 a.m. April 27, after gathering at Picnic Area 36 before being assigned areas for collection.
“I would like to get more people involved to make a bigger impact on cleaning up the city,” Yalamanchili said. "This year, we are going to do a cleanup on one Saturday each month."
He emphasized that it just takes a little extra work to make it better for everyone.
“Prevention is the key to the problem. We have so much trash all around the city, and if everyone would do their part, it would be a better city,” he added.
For more information on Keep Amarillo Clean, go to https://www.facebook.com/KeepAmarilloClean.org/.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Keep Amarillo Clean puts in work to clean up trash on Earth Day
