Keep America Beautiful Honors Keep El Paso Beautiful

Here's the press release from Katherine Gunter-Palafox, the Executive Director of Keep El Paso Beautiful:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KEEP EL PASO BEAUTIFUL - Honored by Keep America Beautiful
for High Performance Achieved in 2008

Local Organization Recognized as Among the “Best of the Best” Nationwide

El Paso, Texas – January 22, 2008 – Keep El Paso Beautiful received the Keep America Beautiful President’s Circle Award at the President’s Circle Award Luncheon, which took place during Keep America Beautiful’s 55th annual National Conference in Washington, D.C.. The President’s Circle Award recognizes exemplary performance made by certified affiliates of the national nonprofit to reduce litter, minimize waste, and beautify and improve their local communities.

In qualifying for a President’s Circle Award, Keep El Paso Beautiful has met Keep America Beautiful’s standards of excellence by conducting an annual Litter Index, calculating the affiliate’s cost/benefit ratio, and engaging volunteers to take greater responsibility for their community environment. In addition, award recipients must conduct activities in Keep America Beautiful’s three core focus areas of litter prevention, waste reduction, and beautification/community improvement.

“Keep America Beautiful is committed to making a simple premise work in communities across the nation – engaging individuals to take greater responsibility for improving their community environments,” said Keep America Beautiful President & CEO Matthew McKenna. “One of the national organization’s most effective tools is the work of our grassroots network of affiliate organizations, which has an impact on millions of Americans each year.”

“Keep El Paso Beautiful is providing real solutions to problems like litter, graffiti, illegal dumping and other community blights,” added McKenna, in announcing the 2008 award winners. “By enabling people of all ages to participate in community improvement efforts, Keep El Paso Beautiful is represented among the best in promoting the values Keep America Beautiful espouses nationally.”

Litter Index: The Keep America Beautiful Litter Index is a tool used by Keep El Paso Beautiful to measure litter from year to year, identify “hot spots,” and track our progress in remedying the problem. The tool uses a scale ranging from 1 (no litter) to 4 (extremely littered.) The Litter Index can be applied to rural or urban areas of any population size. Each year, affiliates grade their communities during a drive-by examination of the same areas at the same time of the year. This provides an indication of the success of each community’s anti-littering education and other anti-littering programs. Keep El Paso Beautiful conducted its Litter Index August 4-19, 2008; El Paso rated a 1.84 on the Litter Index scale.

Cost/Benefit Analysis: This measurement tool enables Keep El Paso Beautiful to demonstrate our ability to leverage community resources by determining the dollar value returned to the community for every government dollar invested. Cost/Benefit Analysis to the community of El Paso is $112 for every one dollar of government monies contributed to Keep El Paso Beautiful.

REDUCE YOUR USE - THERE IS NO EXCUSE
Katherine Gunter- Palafox
Executive Director/Keep El Paso
Beautiful
915.472.2985

Keep El Paso Beautiful is a big part of keeping El Paso natural.