New Keep McAlester Beautiful program aims to link court-ordered service and community projects

Keep McAlester Beautiful introduced a program to channel community-service volunteers — including people ordered by courts — into local clean-up and maintenance projects, the group’s new executive director told the McAlester City Council.

Lacey Fields, the organization’s newly appointed executive director, said the nonprofit has a backlog of people who need community-service hours and that matching them with the group’s project bank would help reduce that backlog while accomplishing neighborhood clean-ups, park work and other maintenance.

“Over the past couple of months ... we have became aware that there is a shortage of community service volunteer hours for those who have been ordered by courts to serve community service,” Fields said, and the group plans to coordinate with county courts and drug court to place volunteers on projects.

Program details and partners Keep McAlester Beautiful plans to develop a project bank of small- to medium-sized jobs and will work with city staff, the county court system and local schools. Fields said the program is open to students and civic groups in addition to court-ordered volunteers.

Council response and next steps Council members thanked the group for organizing and for offering to coordinate with staff. The organization provided a short written outline of proposed projects for council members and said it will follow up with city staff to formalize placements and schedules.

Ending Fields said Keep McAlester Beautiful will accept referrals and coordinate projects with city staff, the county court and other partners to get volunteers into the field quickly.