Keep America Beautiful Affiliate of the Month

– January 2024 –

Keep Gastonia Beautiful

Keep America Beautiful® (KAB) is proud to announce our next Affiliate of the Month. In this KAB initiative, we feature the great work being done in our network of 700 certified affiliates. Our Affiliate of the Month for January 2024 is Keep Gastonia Beautiful (KGB). They are being recognized for an Innovation Award they received from Keep America Beautiful in 2022. The Keep America Beautiful Innovation Award salutes affiliates that have created innovative partnerships and programs to further the mission of KAB. 

 Q&A with Keep Gastonia Beautiful (KGB) 

Executive Director Juliann Lehman: 

How long have you been an integral part of KGB, and what roles have you fulfilled during your tenure? 

Juliann: I’ve worked for the City of Gastonia, which is in North Carolina, since 2007, but in a different role, I was helping people buy homes. When Keep Gastonia Beautiful (KGB) opened, I just wanted to roll my chair down the hallway. That would be my dream job in the City of Gastonia.  

I was granted that opportunity to become KGB’s Executive Director in January 2020, stepping into a role that former director Pat Johnson held for 30 years. I came in with some big dreams thinking, wow, all the things we were going to do and change, and then we had this little thing called COVID. Everything we’d ever done before had to stop. So, it was a great time to evaluate the programs.  

We created a huge online presence during that time, really building up our followers, educating the community on things like how to recycle properly. We made videos for the first time. We were just doing things that were outside of what KGB had ever done before. But it was fun.  

We see the city of Gastonia through this green pair of lenses and really try to focus on our mission with each of the projects that we work on, whether it’s on the city side or the nonprofit side. We are a quasi-government entity, and as the administrator, we’re going to be working on a lot of things.  

You ask what position I have, I do everything. If you need me to jump in a river, I’m going to jump in the river. If you need to go clean litter, I’m going to be out there to set an example for you. If we need to pick up tables and move things, I’m doing whatever needs to be done. I’m willing to get my hands dirty. So, maybe not a typical administrator or executive director, but one that I want to feel, see, touch and do everything my volunteers or staff are doing.  

Could you share the origins of your passion for the environment and environmental stewardship? 

Juliann: Well, I’ve got a great story. It all started back in third grade when I read the book, “50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth.”  At the age of eight, I wrote a letter to President Bush, informing him where I went to school, and that I’ve been reading this book. I told him all the things my family was going to do to save the earth. I told him we were going to start using cloth napkins, and that we were going to start carrying our own bags to the grocery store.   

To this day, my family continues to use cloth napkins. My mom, my sister, my whole family, we all use cloth napkins. I was reading this letter to my boys last night and they were like, so what do other people use? I was like, oh, um, like paper towel or napkins. They were shocked, and I thought, oh my gosh, boys, we have this whole family of, “let’s wash our napkins and being very hippie and green.”  

It’s a long story, but at that age, you are so impressionable and to have someone in your little eight-year-old brain does have an impact on you.  

In the nineties, my mom was progressive. She made us clean the roads, and my gosh, that was like torture. I complained that my mom was making me clean up litter, and I thought people would look at me and make fun of me. Now, I’m encouraging others to go out, make a difference, and make our city cleaner and greener. It’s like coming full circle in a fun way. 

The recognition of a Keep America Beautiful Innovation Award came your way in 2022. Could you provide insights into the projects that merited this prestigious acknowledgment? 

Juliann: That was quite an honor. I had no idea when I wrote that application that we’d ever get it. 

The intent of the project was just a creative way for us to showcase that we’re a Bee City USA affiliate. We want to educate the community about the importance of bees and pollinators through public art. 

Keep Gastonia Beautiful has been a trendsetter in the city of Gastonia, installing public art pieces. We knew we wanted to do something with bees, but we didn’t know what. So, we sent out an RFP (Request for Proposal) and chose a mosaic artist. He uses recycled glass for his projects, which was really enticing for us as it allowed us to showcase two parts of our mission: our love of recycling and creating beauty out of items that would be considered trash. Additionally, there was the bee aspect of it.   

He made a 20-foot mosaic piece, a statue that incorporates many architectural features of the buildings on our Main Street. He has a vision that I don’t have and was able to look up and say, “Wow, there’s really cool architecture here; I could put a mosaic on this column.” We then placed metal bees along Main Street, and people could use a QR code to learn about the piece. They can follow these bees all the way down Main Street, leading them to this big statue-like column. They’re like, “What is this little bee here? Let’s take a picture of this QR code. Let’s learn about bees and this building,” and then they make their way all the way through downtown. It’s just a nice way to show our history, to show our appreciation, and incorporate more public art pieces throughout our downtown. 

What was the reaction of the community to this artistic installation?  

Juliann: We never had a mosaic piece in this town and probably in this region. So, some people wondered, “What is a mosaic?” Truly, when they see what we did with the little metal bees, we powder coated them to make them pop and placed them in downtown flower beds, on light posts, and on signs.  It brings a little bit of whimsy, and I think people really enjoyed it. They like being able to get out, not having to talk to people, and just wander down Main Street to learn a little bit about our downtown and our history. Of course, we love our little bees. So, anything that we can do to get buzzing about that and using that as a good term, everybody was truly buzzing about it.  

And then, the artist won an award for his use of recycled materials through a local organization in North Carolina, further highlighting the success of our project. 

What other projects are you proud of, or perhaps have coming up in 2024?  

Juliann: I think if we use what we had in our coffers or in our city budget, we couldn’t do many of these outside the box thinking projects.  

So, in late 2022, we received a grant through Dominant Energy, and we were able to create a farm to table program this past summer that educated over 460 students. We partnered with our local farmers’ market, and a kitchen called Ram’s Kitchen. Students learned where food comes from, met with and interviewed local farmers, then Ram’s Kitchen helped prepare a healthy snack all while teaching kids that healthy food can be tasty.  

They were making fresh zoodles, making a salad out of that, then eating it right on the spot. Basically, they were getting the produce from the farmers then making it on the spot. It was a community collaborative effort.  

Our staff was wondering how we were going to do this and continue it through the school year. So, they made a curriculum that aligns with our fourth-grade curriculum here in North Carolina, and they took it on the road.  They went to schools and taught this and then tied it back to how all the food that you can make and buy and get in North Carolina. The final part of this is we funded healthy, fresh and affordable boxes, like the CSA boxes that you can get, for the people in the Highland community. This is a neighborhood where Ram’s Kitchen is located, and is considered a food desert. Being able to provide this service and support their mission was a great way to give back to the community. 

Do you have volunteers or groups of people you want to recognize?

Juliann: You know, our board of directors, they’re above and beyond. We have 30 members on our board, and they do so much work. 

Also, I would say our biggest volunteer group is twofold, with one of them is our Master Gardeners’ group. They help us with so many different projects.  I love working with them, and they have been great partners with the farm-to-table project this summer. They were at most of our events, helping. It is great to have dedicated people like them in the community. 

About Keep Gastonia Beautiful:

Keep Gastonia Beautiful, located in Gastonia, North Carolina, was founded in 1977.  Our mission is to make the community at large knowledgeable and responsible in natural resource conservation, solid waste handling, recycling, litter abatement and beautification.  Keep Gastonia Beautiful is a unique organization, we are both a City recognized department with a working budget granted yearly from management and a non-profit. Our staff is paid through the City’s general fund and we have a city budget to execute activities required for the department but we also have a non-profit account at a local bank where we have the ability to fundraise and do specific projects that would not have to be run through the City process. With our non-profit designation, we can apply for grants and other opportunities that we would not be able to by being affiliated with the local government.

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. The organization is driven by the work and passion of 700 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, Linkedin, and YouTube. Donate and take action at kab.org.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

McCall Vrydaghs

Keep America Beautiful®

communications@kab.org