Keep Emanuel Beautiful earns national recognition as newest affiliate of Keep America Beautiful®

Emanuel County’s community pride movement just hit a major milestone: Keep Emanuel Beautiful (KEB) is now officially certified as an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful® (KAB), the nation’s leading community improvement nonprofit.

The certification became official Tuesday, June 3, 2025, following a 3-hour final training ses-sion led by representatives from KAB and the Keep Georgia Beautiful Foundation (KGBF). The training was the final step in a multi-year effort by the volunteer-led KEB board to reestablish the county’s presence within the state and national clean community networks.

“This has been three years in the making,” said Tony Hutcheson, KEB chairperson. “We are incredibly proud to now be part of this nationwide network of leaders working to beautify, ed-ucate, and restore and stir pride in their communities.”

The training was conducted by KAB representative Mallory Coffey and KGBF’s Natalie John-ston-Russell and Meagan Whitehead. In attendance were Hutcheson, KEB Vice Chair George Elder, Treasurer Zach Proctor, and board members Halei Lamb, Shari Watt, Elease Turner, and Richard Claxton.

Elder, a founding member of the state’s Keep Georgia Beautiful program in the 1970s, played a pivotal role in reviving the local affiliate, just as he did decades ago when he helped shape Georgia’s original KGB bylaws. He has spent the last three years writing bylaws for KEB to check that box for affiliation.

However, the composition of bylaws is just one necessity in a series of requirements expected of prospective KAB affiliates. The process also requires demonstrated leadership and execution of community betterment events such as organized clean-ups, documented community engagement, consistent board meetings, recordkeeping, adoption of a budget, and a thorough series of environmental assessments, including annual “litter index” surveys that measure cleanliness in key areas over time. KEB completed these indexes over the last three years and developed a multi-pronged strategic plan for local beautification.

Now, with its certification in hand, KEB is gaining access to affiliate-exclusive resources through the KAB Affiliate Hub, opening doors to national toolkits, grants, and collaborative programs with other affiliate communities. While the group is already laying the groundwork to bring some of those resources to life locally with early efforts likely to emerge on social media or through visible community projects, KEB leaders say their focus now is to show, not tell, and let the work speak for itself.

“Being part of Keep America Beautiful is a great accomplishment,” said Hutcheson. “It opens a lot of doors for us. We’ve got a good, reliable group still coming together every month, and that’s progress in itself. We’ve stalled some, sure, but I think we’ve turned a corner with this affiliation. Since our meeting in the first week of June when we did our training, we’ve had one regular board meeting. During that meeting alone, we discussed several cool, good, achievable things. Hopefully they’ll be coming down the pike sooner rather than later. We don’t want to give away too much, but just know this movement is happening because of two things: the commitment of our core group and the leadership and resources that come with this affiliation. That’s what’s going to help us turn ideas into action.”

The affiliation is the newest chapter in Keep Emanuel Beautiful’s storied history. In earlier decades, the group (formerly known as the Clean Community Commission) was a joint effort be-tween the City of Swainsboro and Emanuel County. It facilitated recycling initiatives, county-wide clean-ups, and even helped develop Patriot Square downtown. Funding was discontinued in the early 2000s, but volunteers have quietly kept the mission alive.

Today’s KEB board includes residents from across Emanuel County, and its meetings remain open to all. There are no dues to become a member—only a willingness to help clean, educate, recycle, and beautify. The group meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. at Franklin Memorial Library. Details and contact info are available on the Emanuel County web-site.

For more information or to get involved, visit Keep Emanuel Beautiful on Facebook or Insta-gram. You can also reach the organization at [email protected].

A framed certificate marking the new affiliate status is expected to arrive soon.