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Keep Milledgeville Baldwin Beautiful asks county to back adopt-a-road push and stricter enforcement
Summary
Representatives of Keep Milledgeville Baldwin Beautiful (KNBB) told commissioners the volunteer adopt-a-road program gained 10 formal adopters in 2024, and asked the county for policy support, enforcement, and help scaling volunteer efforts and school programs.
Keep Milledgeville Baldwin Beautiful (KNBB) representatives told the Baldwin County Board of Commissioners that volunteer groups adopted 10 road segments in 2024 but need county support to sustain and expand the program.
Ashley Copeland, identified in the meeting as a KNBB board member and director of community engagement at Georgia College, described the programmap and said adopters had cleaned their stretches in the past six months but that weather and mowing schedules had made sustaining frequent cleanups difficult. Copeland said KNBB hopes to organize a recurring cleanup day (proposed as the second Saturday of each month) so adopters and students can coordinate service.
Copeland and other volunteers said volunteers are not municipal employees and cannot be expected to maintain roads continuously; they asked the county to consider policy tools, enforcement, and public outreach to reduce littering. She described a planned low-cost social-media campaign to reach people who do not follow local groups and who might not read local print news.
Commissioners and volunteers discussed outreach to schools: Copeland said KNBB brings a coloring activity book featuring a character called "Rocky the recycling raccoon" into schools and that children often demonstrate strong knowledge about litter prevention, but that the program needs sustained reinforcement. One commissioner noted stricter ordinances and fines could deter deliberate littering but said enforcement capacity would be a problem.
Volunteers and commissioners agreed on the value of public-private partnership: KNBB emphasized it is an educational organization and asked county agencies to complement volunteer work with enforcement and policy tools rather than expecting volunteers to shoulder the burden alone.
Ending
KNBB said it will aim for a recurring second-Saturday cleanup schedule and work with county staff to publicize dates; volunteers urged the county to explore enforcement and school-based education to bolster litter prevention.
