As an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, Keep Alachua County Beautiful believes that each of us holds an obligation to preserve and protect our environment. Through our everyday choices and actions we collectively have a huge impact on our world. It's really a simple concept, but one with far reaching effects.

Keep America Beautiful follows a practical approach uniting citizens, businesses and the government to find solutions that advance our core issues of preventing litter, reducing waste and beautifying communities.

Keep America Beautiful's Great American Cleanup, the nation's largest annual community improvement program, brings the power of 3.8 million volunteers and participants to create local change. Volunteers donated more than 5.2 million hours in 2011 to clean, beautify and improve more than 33,700 communities during more than 16,500 events in all 50 states and beyond. Activities included beautifying parks and recreation areas, cleaning seashores and waterways, handling recycling collections, picking up litter, planting trees and flowers, and conducting educational programs and litter-free events.

So come volunteer with us at the Great American Cleanup and be part of a national event!

In December, KACB partnered up with the Young Marines, SWAG and McDonald's of Gainesville for Toys for Tots. Through these efforts, over 400 bags of toys were collected and delievered to children in SWAG neighborhoods. Thank you to all those involved for making this event such a success.

We would also like to thank McDonald's of Gainesville for their help in the community and for being a sustainable organization. Read about how their sustainable packaging is top-ranked: http://resource-recycling.com/node/2549

Get too many phone books? Use this website to opt-out and reduce waste: http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/