Keep Smyrna Beautiful is in Full Bloom

Spring means fresh flowers and new growth for Smyrna and that means a busy season for Keep Smyrna Beautiful. The local chapter of the Keep America Beautiful program has had a lot on its plate this spring between the Great American Cleanup in April and the upcoming Document Shredding Day, the Smyrna Garden Tour and the start of this summer’s gardening season.

Formerly Smyrna Clean and Beautiful, Keep Smyrna Beautiful is the local arm of Keep Georgia Beautiful and Keep America Beautiful. The non-profit group is committed to keeping the community clean, whether that be through local cleanup efforts or education and outreach about waste management and recycling.

In 2010 alone, Keep Smyrna Beautiful saved the $354,900 through its cleanup efforts, garden tour and grants. This savings is passed on to the taxpayer, said Ann Kirk, director of Keep Smyrna Beautiful. Some of the money-saving tasks performed by Keep Smyrna Beautiful volunteers included sign cleanup, graffiti removal and litter pickup.

“Either the work wouldn’t have been done or it would be done by a paid employee,” Kirk said. 

One of Keep Smyrna Beautiful’s volunteer efforts is the Great American Cleanup, the nation’s largest community improvement program. This year’s Great American Cleanup event took place on April 16 and Kirk applauded the efforts of volunteers at a recent city council meeting.

“We had 178 volunteers come out representing 22 different groups,” Kirk said. “They picked up 91 bags of litter from city streets, 121 tires were removed from a lot, 418 hours of volunteer service were donated and 21 miles were cleaned.”

Keep Smyrna Beautiful is also dedicated to providing recycling solutions for Smyrna residents. This Saturday, April 30, the group will hold its Document Shredding Day at the Aline Wolfe Senior Center on Church Street from 9 a.m. to noon. Participants can bring four file boxes or 100 pounds of paper to be shredded. The shredded paper will then be recycled.

“That’s quite a bit of material that you can get removed and you can watch it being shredded,” Kirk said.

Keep Smyrna Beautiful’s mission isn’t just to keep the city clean. The group also encourages residents to stop and smell the roses once in a while. Or in Smyrna’s case, stop and smell the jonquils.

For 22 years Keep Smyrna Beautiful has sponsored the Jonquil Gold Rush, an annual campaign that encourages residents to plant jonquil bulbs. Mayor Max Bacon and Kathy Barton, then the director of Keep Smyrna Beautiful, started the program in 1989.

“The reason we do the project is because Smyrna has been known as the Jonquil City since the 1930s,” Kirk said. “Development and road widening had taken out of a lot of the jonquils.”

Since the program began, 1,075,000 bulbs have been sold. The profits from the sale of the bulbs are used to donate jonquil bulbs to Smyrna schools.

Another arm of the group’s mission to promote the natural beauty of the city is the Keep Smyrna Beautiful Garden Tour. This year marks the city’s third garden tour, which will be held rain or shine May 14 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

This year’s tour includes six homes plus the Taylor-Brawner House. Advanced tickets are $10 and may be purchased at , Honeybee, , and the and . Tickets are $15 the day of the tour.

Keep Smyrna Beautiful also encourages residents to do some gardening of their own. The Community Garden Project allows residents to rent plots of land sectioned off at Cooper Lake Park to grow their own herbs, vegetables and fruit. This allows Smyrna residents without yards to enjoy the benefits of gardening.

Dianne Sudduth and her sister Sherry Kaiser have rented a plot in the garden since last fall.

“I love the garden,” said Sudduth. “Everybody down here’s friendly, everybody down here’s fun and we’re learning from each other.”

Phase One of the Community Garden Project is still being completed with the help of a team of volunteers from IBM. Once completed, Phase One of the Community Garden Project will feature 59 plots in four different sizes including two plots with handicap access. To learn more about renting a plot visit here.

Keep Smyrna Beautiful is also gearing up for the Smyrna Fresh Produce Market. The summer market season begins Saturday, May 7, and features fresh produce including corn, tomatoes, peaches, blueberries, melons and honey. Most of the produce comes from Georgia farmers.

“Our goal with the produce market was to have fresh seasonal produce and support local growers,” Kirk said.

The market runs every Saturday till the end of September at the parking lot on King Street.