Many students around the University of Louisiana at Lafayette have been taking advantage of the Get Down and Clean Up kits that the Edith Garland Dupre library offers. Students can check out these kits using their student IDs and use the resources to help clean up litter around the roads in Lafayette.
The Get Down and Clean Up kit includes a trash grabber, trash bags, a neon reflective safety vest and instructions.
These resources are supplied to the school via the Keep Louisiana Beautiful program that strives to reduce litter and trash around the state of Louisiana. The kits are not only available in the Edith Garland Dupre library, but also in the Louisiana State Library and the Louisiana Public Library System.
The organization suggests turning on some music with a group of friends while students help clean up. They also recommend posting photos to social media so that Keep Louisiana Beautiful can shout out community members.
With Mardi Gras just having come to an end, now is a perfect time for students to be active in their community and help clean up their city and state.
Stephanie Robichaux, a member of the library staff said, “The kits are given to us by an organization so that students can check them out to go help clean up around campus. Are they used very often? Not really, but it’s a really good idea.”
She also said, “When I was a school teacher, I would have loved to have had this to go get my 4-H students and my library workers who always were willing to work weekends to help clean up Abbeville.”
Joyce Algeria-Bernhard, a sophomore kinesiology major said, “Having the school just provide more like essentials or necessities just gives us more of an opportunity to like lean on the school more for simple things like that.”
Aysa Jordan, a senior psychology pre-medical major said, “I think other people should use it, I mean, it’s definitely a way to give back.”
The Keep Louisiana Beautiful program was founded in 2000 and has been receiving the President’s Circle Award from the Keep America Beautiful program since 2015. The program hosts and participates in many events including “Love The Boot Week”, webinars and conferences.
The mission of Keep Louisiana Beautiful is “to promote personal, corporate, and community responsibility for a clean and beautiful Louisiana.”
One way that the program does this is by improving policy and infrastructure through grants programs, advocacy and data collection. Another way is by strengthening environmental law enforcement through legislation support and a litter court handbook.
The third way that the program displays their mission is by influencing positive behavior through education, teacher training and public awareness campaigns.
Lastly, Keep Louisiana Beautiful helps to increase community capacity through litter cleanups, recycling collections, trainings and state conferences.
Though one small piece of trash on the side of the road seems like not a big deal, the amount of litter adds up and ultimately harms the city of Lafayette. Both Keep America Beautiful and Keep Louisiana Beautiful strive to reduce the litter and environmental issues that citizens see on a day-to-day basis.
By providing UL Lafayette with Get Down and Clean Up kits, the students are given the opportunity to help brighten their community simply by checking out a kit and taking a few minutes to pick up some litter during their day.