Clean Green Beautiful North Bay is keeping the momentum going with a final cleanup push before the snow flies.
Since the initiative began in May of this year, volunteers have collected 13-hundred bags of garbage from around the community.
The goal when it started was to become “the most beautiful city in Northern Ontario.”
Hariett Madigan who helped spearhead the project says community response has been “tremendous.”
“I think people see you out there and they get inspired not to litter. That is the whole objective right?” asked Madigan.
“Clean Green Beautiful has brought together well over 300 teams with 15-hundred volunteers and tremendous community engagement.”
An online contest has been created for that final push.
“Register your project at cleangreenbeautiful.com then you can register online by tagging @CleanGreenBeautifulNB on Facebook and Instagram. Take before and after photos at your clean up site. Your project will automatically be entered in a draw for a gift certificate from Downtown North Bay and a gift basket from the Farmers’ Market.”
In addition, the Capitol Centre will be displaying a large map of the City of North Bay that will show where community efforts have been focused, as well as those planned for the near future.
Add a location to the map by going to the box office and filling out a form.
The main sponsor, Caisse Alliance has made another 5-thousand biodegradable bags available.
“Our mission is to be part of the community and be present in the community. It is a good way for us to give back. It is important for our staff to be part of the community, and any initiative we can be a part of and partner with is important to us,” said Mathieu Shank representing Caisse Alliance.
“This goes hand in hand with our new green initiative which we launched back in June. We are now planting trees for every birth in all our member cities. In North Bay we’ve planted around 11-hundred trees this year.”
Upcoming clean up events start September 5th with the Canadore College Student Expo; September 22-NUSA (Nipissing University Student Alumni) Great Canadian Shoreline Clean up at Marathon Beach; September 22-Chippewa Creek Ecopath Festival; September 25th-NUSU Student Expo and September 29th Nipissing Culture Days Finale.
The bags will be collected at the curb alongside the normal weekly garbage collection.
“If we didn’t litter in the first place, we wouldn’t be doing this,” said Madigan.
“Our fondest hope is that we don’t need to use all of those 5,000 bags because people have actually made a culture shift and become stewards of the community.”
Litter bags are available at the North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce, Nipissing University Student Union (NUSU) office, The FARM on Main Street West, the Voyageur Inn, both Caisse Alliance locations, the North Bay Museum, and Carry All Home Building Centre.
Now that the “Clean” part of the initiative is underway, the focus next spring is on “Green and Beautiful.”
“We’re going to highlight some of the great things people are already doing. They have gone beyond clean and gone to green and beautiful and it is mind boggling what they are doing, including tree planting,” said Madigan.
