Stamford, Connecticut, May 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- National nonprofit Keep America Beautiful® is bringing America’s leading volunteer-driven community improvement program, the Great American Cleanup®, directly to people’s homes with today’s kickoff of the Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience, in advance of #GivingTuesdayNow.
For more than 20 years, Keep America Beautiful has brought communities together for the Great American Cleanup, which normally takes place during the spring months. This year, the Great American Cleanup was postponed to avoid the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). #GivingTuesdayNow, a new global day of giving and unity, takes place on May 5, 2020 – in addition to the regularly scheduled #GivingTuesday (Dec. 1) – as an emergency response to the unprecedented need caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience, a feature of DoBeautifulThings.org, is a “virtual park” that people can interact with and beautify through virtual experiences. As users earn points by completing activities, walking/running, or fundraising, the virtual park will be cleaned and beautified. Participants will help identify where a Keep America Beautiful community beautification project will take place when the fundraising target is reached, and once volunteers are able to safely re-engage with one another.
The Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience is designed to engage individuals and teams – who might normally be volunteering in a Great American Cleanup event – to participate in an online activity, while the Great American Cleanup is postponed. The Great American Cleanup will resume once it is deemed safe for volunteers of our community-based affiliates and partner organizations to reconvene.
“Creating beautiful places in our communities help establish emotional connections between people and their places, building important community identity and common ground. In times like these, we know that to ‘do beautiful things’ means coming together as a community,” said Keep America Beautiful President and CEO Helen Lowman. “The Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience will serve as a fun way for us to showcase that we intend to keep our commitment to bringing people together and to beautifying our communities, even during a global pandemic.”
Participating in the Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience is easy. Register your organization and become a team captain or register as an individual fundraiser. Download the Charity Footprints app (Google Play, App Store), click the virtual Great American Cleanup campaign, and record your results. If you’re using a fitness device (Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Health Kit, Google Fit, Misfit, Strava), sync it with the Charity Footprints site. Every activity listed and funds raised counts toward your footprint goal. Each time a new milestone is reached, the virtual park will become more beautiful and vibrant. You can engage family, friends, or even corporate partners and their employees, who can participate in a corporate Match Program.
Keep America Beautiful recently launched DoBeautifulThings.org to showcase acts of kindness being displayed by individuals during the coronavirus pandemic. The Great American Cleanup Virtual Experience can be found here: https://www.charityfootprints.com/greatamericancleanup.
The Great American Cleanup is the largest community improvement program in the United States, engaging more than half a million volunteers on an annual basis across 15,000 different opportunities to get involved. In 2019 – with the support of 3.8 million volunteer hours, Great American Cleanup volunteers improved 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.
About Keep America Beautiful
Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s leading 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.
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