Oconee Economic Alliance Announces Downtown Clean Up Challenge Winner
(SENECA, S.C.) – August 7, 2017 – The Oconee Economic Alliance, through the Destination Oconee initiative, is proud to announce that the City of Westminster was selected as the winner of the “Downtown Clean Up Challenge.” As the winner, the City of Westminster will receive a $5,000 grant from the Oconee Economic Alliance to be used towards a beautification project within their downtown. The other three participating municipalities will each receive $500 dollars for participating and those funds must also be applied to their downtown areas.
This “Downtown Clean Up Challenge” was issued to all five municipalities within Oconee County to pick up litter during the month of July as a continuation project of “The Great Oconee Clean Up” that occurred in April. The goal of these two community events was to beautify key areas of the community by removing litter and to promote a more positive impression of our Oconee County.
“This was such a successful downtown challenge as nearly 150 people came together spread over four cities to collect 3500 pounds of litter,” stated Janet Hartman, manager of the Destination Oconee program. “I truly hope the success of this challenge encourages the cities and others in the county to continue being involved in helping Oconee County reach its full potential.”
A selection committee convened on August 4, 2017 to review the submitted results from the participating cities and those highlights are as follows:
- Four volunteers collected 120 pounds of litter within the Town of West Union, who was the first municipality to participate in the challenge. Their litter pick up occurred on July 15th.
- Twenty-two volunteers showed up on July 22nd and collected 240 pounds of litter along North 1st Street and along parts of downtown within the City of Seneca.
- On July 29th, the City of Walhalla saw twenty-eight volunteers come together to clean up around the city pool and other neglected areas. Their efforts resulted in 1,680 pounds of litter collected , the largest amount reported for the challenge.
- Ninety people in total canvassed the streets of Westminster and collected 1,460 pounds of litter on July 29th.
The review committee was comprised of the following individuals: Christine Tedesco, chair of the Oconee Economic Alliance board of directors: Lisa Nock, director of Keep Oconee Beautiful (KOBA); Maureen Whitman, Oconee County Solid Waste and Board Member of KOBA, and Brandon Meadows, Environmental Services officer with the Oconee County Sheriff Department. The committee selected the City of Westminster as the overall winner due to the large number of volunteers recruited to participate combined with the impressive total amount of litter collected.
“Congratulations to the City of Westminster for putting forth a great clean up event,” commented Christine Tedesco. “They not only collected 1460 pounds of trash in a few hours, they demonstrated true community pride as 90 volunteers worked together to make Westminster a better place.”
In total, through the “Great Oconee Clean Up” and the “Downtown Clean Up Challenge”, there was 5500 pounds of litter collected and 350 volunteers associated with these events organized by the Oconee Economic Alliance.
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Oconee Economic Alliance
The Oconee Economic Alliance is a public-private nonprofit effort to accelerate job creation and capital investment, increase per capita income, diversify the local tax base and generate awareness of Oconee County, South Carolina as a business location. To learn more, please visit www.InvestOconeeSC.com.