Local & State Headlines

Keep Georgia Beautiful honors Albany native

• Cleanup and environmental education efforts never stop for one Albany woman.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Judy Bowles meets her contact with Albany codes enforcement at the start of a dirt path behind the Rose’s shopping center. They ride onto a vacant tract adjoining Liberty Expressway and behold a sight that never, even after two decades in environmental education, fails to surprise the petite Albany native.

“Don’t ask me why, because I just don’t understand it,” said Bowles, after touring the East Albany property. “People just ride in there and dispose of whatever. There are probably 25 illegal dumps in there.”

Education of identifiable business owners, such as the roofer who likely discarded shingles at the site to avoid paying landfill fees, comes swiftly: “The second call that codes enforcement makes is to me, and I call the media. We’re able to deter illegal dumps because people don’t want their name on TV,” said Bowles.

But over the long haul, 19 years at the helm of Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful, education has taken many forms for Bowles, who was recognized last month as the top in her field with Keep Georgia Beautiful’s Barbara Mason Award for the executive director of the year.

Bowles said she was “floored” when her name was called at the state conference in Atlanta. Georgia has the most Keep America Beautiful affiliates of any state — 67 — but not every community is able to keep one active.

Keeping Albany-Dougherty beautiful is an ever-evolving, diverse enterprise far broader than crackdowns on illegal dumpers, though Bowles rarely misses the opportunity — it’s educational, she says — to hunker down at an illegal dump site.

There’s also maintaining Albany’s Tree City USA designation, which in February will celebrate 20 years. Painting over gang graffiti. Some 660 “Trees of Courage” planted along Westover Boulevard to honor the nation’s veterans. A popular electronics recycling program. Marking storm drains to prevent contamination.

But none of it could ever be possible without volunteers, and Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful has lots of them.

“The volunteer base continues to grow,” Bowles said. “It’s neat to work with different people. Different people like to work on different projects.”

Some 43,000 people volunteered in some way last year with Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful projects, giving for free what would cost $5 million, Bowles said.

Held each third Saturday in April, “Stash the Trash” is a very popular event, drawing 1,800 last year to pick up litter on roadsides.

“Those are people that care about the community,” she said. “They enjoy who they’re picking up with and make it fun, even though it’s not a fun job.”

Two projects during the 1990s Bowles said will stand out in her mind always.

During the early 1990s, the Dougherty school system was seeking ways to save money, and discovered that half of its solid waste was paper milk cartons.

Recycling the virgin paper cartons was difficult, she was told, because the containers attracted insects and gave off odors.

But with only 10 extra minutes of work, school personnel could keep the containers from the landfill.

Bowles recalled the first tractor-trailer load of cartons being shipped to an Augusta plant from the first school system in the nation to recycle milk cartons.

“I asked them to break the first load open so I could see it. There was no moles, no bugs and no odor. It was perfect.”

The project, which Bowles has presented to dozens of school systems, saved Dougherty schools $50,000 in landfill fees during its first year.

Then there was the Flood of ’94, when a command center set up during the devastation advertised for anyone who needed help to “call Judy Bowles.”

Bowles came in to work with a mere 135 voice mails to answer. During the five weeks that followed, she’d welcome and coordinate more than 33,000 volunteers who came to Albany to help with recovery.

“It was an awesome experience,” Bowles said.

Most recently, Keep Albany- Dougherty Beautiful has put together a booklet for neighborhoods to get organized.

The handbook provides names, numbers, maps and other local government information, and lists the steps for getting organized, block by block.

“Every block would have a captain,” she said. “That’s how we take our neighborhoods back, that’s how we do beautification.

“Police can’t do it for us, the government can’t do it for us. We have to do it block by block.”

An East Albany neighborhood is the latest to begin organizing — and received a $2,000 grant to plant flowers and maintain the landscape, she said.

Nine more of the grants are still available, she said.

“It builds that community pride,” Bowles said. “The money is sitting here and we need people to apply for it and make their neighborhoods look better.”

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