Keep America Beautiful, in collaboration with the East Side Partnership, lived up to its call-to-action to #cleanYOURblock by conducting a Great American Cleanup event on June 20 at a number of locations in Stamford, Connecticut, home of its national headquarters.

East Side Partnership, the driving force in promoting the transformation of Stamford’s East Side for more than a decade, joined iconic national community improvement nonprofit Keep America Beautiful in cleaning up, greening up and beautifying various locations during the Stamford Great American Cleanup event. The service projects included painting a mural on walls around the Maple Avenue Childhood Learning Center (CLC); planting shade trees at the CLC as well as further down Maple Avenue; mulching a nearby sculpture garden in a commercial area as well as near the I-95 Exit 9 ramp area; and abating graffiti and picking up littered areas in the neighborhood.

Stamford Mayor David Martin and his Chief of Staff Michael Pollard joined Keep America Beautiful President & CEO Helen Lowman as well as East Side Partnership Chairman James Grunberger during the event.

Keep America Beautiful’s national staff was joined by volunteers from law firm Day Pitney’s Stamford office; MasterCard headquarters office in Purchase, New York; Stamford-based Plowshare, a public service ad agency; and local Bank of America team members were joined by others, including students from Stamford-based nonprofit Future 5.

Longtime Keep America Beautiful supporter, Waste Management, the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America, sponsored the event.

(From left to right) Michael Pollard, City of Stamford Chief of Staff; Sara Brody, Keep America Beautiful Director of Development, Individual Giving & Foundations; Helen Lowman, Keep America Beautiful, President & CEO; Stamford Mayor David Martin. (Photo courtesy, Harvest Road Production)