Keep America Beautiful Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Earth Day with Launch of DoBeautifulThings.org
National Nonprofit Website Will Feature Moments of Beauty Created by Americans During Coronavirus Pandemic
STAMFORD, Conn., April 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day (April 22), national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful® will launch DoBeautifulThings.org, a website designed to showcase acts of kindness during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
With the postponement of live public volunteer events for both programs, Earth Day Network and Keep America Beautiful are taking their movements to digital platforms. Through a series of video vignettes and a set of informative resources, DoBeautifulThings.org was created to remind people to do their part to keep their communities beautiful. DoBeautifulThings.org is not only a website but a challenge and inspiration to all of us this Earth Day to properly dispose of our litter, recycle whenever possible, and help each other keep our Earth clean.
"At Keep America Beautiful we have been defining beautiful as 'clean and green' for over six decades," said Keep America Beautiful President and CEO Helen Lowman. "But beautiful is much more than that. Beautiful is people practicing acts of kindness. Beautiful is people coming together as a community. Even in challenging times, people do so many beautiful things – and we know that acts of beauty inspire more acts of beauty. DoBeautifulThings.org will demonstrate how many small, but beautiful actions can inspire positive change."
Keep America Beautiful postponed its spring (March 20-June 20) Great American Cleanup®, the nation's largest community improvement program, because of COVID-19. The Great American Cleanup engages more than half a million volunteers on an annual basis across 15,000 different opportunities to get involved. In 2019 alone, Great American Cleanup volunteers devoted 3.8 million hours, improving 13,489 public spaces; collected 42 million pounds of litter, debris, and recyclables; cleaned and improved more than 30,000 miles of roadways and shorelines; and completed 168,000 plantings over 132,000 acres. Lowman noted that because of restrictions placed on volunteers, Keep America Beautiful is pursuing other avenues for engagement.
The #DoBeautifulThings Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience, a feature of DoBeautifulThings.org, is a "virtual park" in which people can interact and beautify through virtual experiences. As users earn points for taking action, a virtual park will be cleaned and beautified and eventually become eligible for a Keep America Beautiful community beautification project when volunteers are able to safely re-engage with one another.
"The Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience will serve as a fun way for us to showcase that we intend to keep our commitment to the beautification of our communities – straight through these challenging times," Lowman said.
In lieu of the postponed live events, Keep America Beautiful invites you to join Earth Day Network on April 22 for Earth Day Live, a global digital mobilization in a collective call for climate action, and share beautiful video, images, and stories on DoBeautifulThings.org on Earth Day and beyond.
About Keep America Beautiful
Keep America Beautiful, the nation's iconic community improvement nonprofit organization, inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful strives to End Littering, Improve Recycling, and Beautify America's Communities. We believe everyone has a right to live in a clean, green and beautiful community, and shares a responsibility to contribute to that vision.
Behavior change – steeped in education, research and behavioral science – is the cornerstone of Keep America Beautiful. We empower generations of community and environmental stewards with volunteer programs, hands-on experiences, educational curricula, practical advice and other resources. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 650 Keep America Beautiful affiliates, millions of volunteers, and the collaborative support of corporate partners, social and civic service organizations, academia, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals. Join us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Donate and take action at kab.org.
Contacts
Maya Bronstein / Larry Kaufman
DKC / Keep America Beautiful
212.981.5191 / 203.659.3014
[email protected] / [email protected]
dkcnews.com / kab.org
SOURCE Keep America Beautiful
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