2008 Keep Jacksonville Beautiful Awards

Individual
Felica M. Boyd: Ms.. Boyd is a geologist and has been the Duval County coordinator for the Watershed Action Volunteers (WAVs) for a decade. In her role as coordinator, Ms. Boyd's goal is to protect water quality and keep the St. Johns River and its tributaries healthy and clean. To achieve this, Felicia has been actively participating in and with regional and neighborhood cleanups and storm drain marking. She has also been involved in pollution prevention education and litter awareness. Among her myriad activities, she has participated and coordinated neighborhood cleanups, beach cleanups, the annual St. John River Celebration and cleanup, the International Coastal Cleanup, and the International Surfing Day beach cleanup. She has also taken part in the City of Jacksonville's annual litter survey, an annual one-day survey and evaluation. Additionally, she and WAVs under her tutelage made in excess of 250 presentations to students, homeowner and civic organizations, focusing on watersheds and storm water runoffs.

Naval Air Station Jacksonville
Naval Air Station Jacksonville (NAS Jacksonville): NAS Jacksonville is committed to keeping the station clean on a daily basis and to working to help cleanup the community in which it resides. Station personnel participate in the daily litter control of station properties, and the base commander, Capt. John C. Scorby Jr., and his department heads lead an annual station shoreline cleanup. The event, begun a decade ago, continues to grow. This year's clean up was in cooperation with the City of Jacksonville's annual St. Johns River Celebration. The station hosted more than 110 volunteers and disposed of 240 bags of trash and debris weighing more than three tons. The cleanup included areas of Tillie Fowler Regional Park, across from the base. Volunteers led by Capt. Scorby pulled trash and garbage from streams and cleared sludge and muck from the parks' historic brick road and drainage creek. The event highlighted the Navy's commitment to keeping its station and the St. Johns and Ortega rivers clean and free of harmful litter.

Business
Henry Schein, Inc.: Henry Schein is recognized for it's company and community clean ups and recycling efforts that are enthusiastically embraced by staff and management. In 2006, Henry Schein, Inc., employees group, called Team Schein Members, joined the City of Jacksonville's Adopt-A-Road program by adopting a one-mile section of Pritchard Road, near the company's Jacksonville facilities. Since then, Team Schein members and their children conduct litter patrols on a regular basis. Typically 10 to 15 volunteers collect enough litter to fill a pickup truck, which the company disposes in its own trash containers. Team Schein members have also demonstrated commitment to the community by participating in the St. Johns River Celebration cleanup. This year, 46 members of the team collected 3.25 tons of trash. Since 2002 when the company opened the doors of its distribution center, recycling has been a key focus. Some 260 tons of material and 45,400 pallets are recycled annually. Styrofoam packaging materials, cardboard, printer cartridges and computer monitors are recycled. Internally, the company's maintenance department conducts daily trash pick ups. Appropriately sized containers are placed at key locations to minimize and prevent blown trash

Elementary
Stonewall Jackson Elementary School: Everyone from pre-K through 5th grade participates in a variety of litter abatement and beautification projects that have transformed the school's campus into a attractive landscape complete with a butterfly garden. Once a month students and faculty take part in Spruce Up Stonewall Day. Over time, students moved much mulch, planted shrubs, border grass and trees. These efforts were twofold-beautification and to replace damage caused by windstorms and construction. Last year the school added a new shaded picnic area for students. Everyone had a hand—younger students picked up litter around the campus and older ones planted shrubs and border grass. The school's front entrance has been upgraded with plantings, flowerbeds and new benches. With the help of Greenscape and JEA, new maple, magnolia, crepe myrtle and oak trees were added on the playground and will provide shade for future generations of students. Stonewall students have marveled at the transformation of nature in the school's 9-yar-old butterfly garden. The garden was created by parents, children and teaching staff and maintained by students and provides an opportunity for students to track and learn about the migration patterns of butterflies.

Middle School
Alfred I. duPont Middle School: Keep Jacksonville Beautiful/Citizenship through Caring for the Environment is a central theme of the school's Releafing at DuPont (RAD) Club as demonstrated by the club's focus on improving the community environment through recycling and gardening. Comprised of students and teachers, the RAD club encourages citizenship through recycling, which is accomplished through accepting plant or monetary donations and in some cases, sponsoring fundraisers. The Club's various activities and projects include planting and maintaining a chrysanthemum bed to enhance the main entrance of the school, hand-painting and hanging birdhouses around the main entrance and outside library windows to ensure food for birds in winter, designating an area between the sixth grade building and sports field as an historic grove where a tree is added every year, landscaping a once barren area at the sixth grade building to house beds of amaryllis, iris, cactus, crepe myrtle and hibiscus, planting a butterfly garden, winter flower and vegetable garden. Plans call for vegetables grown in next year's garden to be donated to a shelter.

High School
Terry Parker High School: The philosophy underlies one of Terry Parker's main systems of keeping a clean campus is the old adage, "If everyone does a little, no one has to do a lot." The school's Activities Office requires that all school organizations keep up a designated area, and organizations are required to clean their area once a month. The school's NJROTC group is responsible for cleaning a stretch of Townsend Road through their participation in the city's Adopt-A-Road program. The school's environmental club, Roots & Shoots, has joined NJROTC students by adopting Fort Caroline Road near the school. Roots & Shoots also helps Terry Parker keep clean by maintaining a recycling program it started. Recycling bins that once were filled with trash are now fulfilling their intended destiny by receiving aluminum cans and newspapers instead of garbage. The club also instituted paper recycling. Instead of purchasing new recycling bins for each classroom, club members made their own by reusing plastic buckets that cat litter is purchased in—recycled containers for recyclables. School clubs and organizations also participate in a number of projects. Among them are the St. Johns River Celebration cleanup and International Coastal Cleanup, in which Roots & Shoots and the Interact Club take part and Tree Hill, where students pulled weeds and re-mulched trails.

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is recognized for its anti-litter initiative in which districts competed against each other to help Keep Jacksonville Beautiful through enforcement and education. Five of JSO's districts participated with impressive results. Zone One, headed by Assistant Chief J.R. Ross, conducted five "deployments," resulting in five arrests and three homeless camps being removed. Zone Six, led by Assistant Chief M.A. Rutledge, conducted operations that resulted in one traffic citation for littering, 11 contacts with businesses and residents to discuss the deleterious effects of graffiti, trash and illegal dumping. In addition to the anti-litter initiatives, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, through the city's Adopt-A-Road program, has adopted two roadways—Myrtle Avenue and Bay Street.