Welcome to Central Georgia focus. I’m your host this week, Kaitlyn, heck, this week we are celebrating the golden anniversary of Keep Making the beautiful and the continued community support, planting a beautiful future for Make a County. Our guest is Miss as Allen, executive director of Keep Making the beautiful.
Thank you for being with us today. Thank you for having me. Of course, we’re off the heels of the Cherry Blossom Festival celebrating a big milestone of keep making it beautiful before we dive into all of that though. Tell people the connection between keep making, be beautiful and keep America beautiful
Because it’s a pretty interesting connection. Well, yes. Well, keep making beer beautiful was uh was founded um 50 years ago um by Mrs Carolyn Creighton, who we all also know as the founder of our international Cherry Blossom Festival. Well, 50 years ago, Mrs Creighton saw a need
Um to, to have a, an affiliate uh keep America beautiful affiliate um in Macon Middle Georgia. And at that time, keep America beautiful, did not have an affiliate program. And so due to the um innovation and the ideas of Mrs Crayton, she reached out to Keep America beautiful.
And from that, there was a pilot program that consisted of three, cities, Macon was one, and two other, um, cities. And, um, that’s how the Keep America Beautiful affiliate program and was started, um, by one woman who had an idea who had a passion
And here we are still standing 50 years later. Fantastic. She’s certainly a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure. Yes, she is. She was she and uh keep making before recently celebrated at a luncheon. Yes, we celebrated the official um date of keep making be a beautiful,
Becoming a Keep America beautiful affiliate was March 1st. Um And so on March 1st, a few weeks ago, we had a luncheon um honoring Mrs Crayton and the entire Keep making be a beautiful board um to celebrate um our, our 50 years of, of being in the Making b community.
And of course, you mentioned she also the founder of the Cherry Blossom Festival. Talk a little bit about that and keep making it beautiful involvement. Yes. Well, what people don’t know. So a lot of people aren’t aware of that. Keep making be beautiful.
Um We actually, we were founded before the Cherry Blossom Festival, um the Cherry Blossom Festival um initially started as an event hosted by keep making be a beautiful to celebrate Mr Fickling um his birthday and his contributions to the um of providing Yoshino cherry blossom trees. And that
One day celebration turned into what we now know as the 10 day International Cherry Blossom Festival. Can you believe how much it’s grown in that time? I know, I remember when the festival began, I was actually a child.
And so to be able to grow up and experience that, but even more so now to, to have a better understanding of how it all began and, and who was responsible for that? I keep making it beautiful in its 50 years has done so
Much for this community and is being celebrated as an affiliate. Yes. Yes. Like I said, we are being celebrated as one of the first pilot or premier affiliates of Keep America beautiful. Um 50 years. Uh A lot of affiliates have not over the years been able to, to still withstand,
But we have withstood the test of time um for 50 years. Um And we’re still going strong. And why do you think that is that you all are able to keep such a stronghold in this community? Well, you know, it first starts with and I have to give
Credit once again to Mrs Crayton for her vision, for her passion, but also for her ability to be able to bring people together from the community to public, uh the public sector, private sector, nonprofit sectors, being able to work across the board. Um because this is a community organ
And it takes all individuals in our community to make it a success. And, um, I’m, I’m just thrilled to be able to continue the legacy in which she built, uh, such a great legacy too. But of course, always looking to the future, what do you see in the future for? Keep making it?
Um, you know, I definitely see us and that’s where, you know, my, a big part of why I try to work a lot within our schools, within our, with our young people, whether it’s our elementary, middle high schools and even our colleges um to um to be able to um
Make our young people um educate them and make them aware of who we are and what we do and how they play a part in this and how they are the next generation to be able to keep us around for another 50 years. And of course, yourself getting an award.
Uh No, you don’t love to talk about yourself. I brought you a little bit, tell us a little bit about the award and what it is and what it means to you. Yes. Well, I’m honored to say that um Keep Georgia beautiful. Um I will be recognized in May at
The Keep Georgia Beautiful um Foundation’s annual conference. Um I will be receiving the Barbara Mason, executive director of the Year award. So it’s a statewide recognition named in honor of the founder of Keep Georgia Beautiful. And so I was just elated to,
To number one just be nominated and then to be nominated and then to also become the actual award recipient. It’s not something that I take lightly. Um and that award is not just for me. Um it, it’s for this entire community because I could not do what I do without
The support of our board of directors and without the support of our community. And of course, even just, just to a couple of years into this role, getting this award, I know that means, you know, you just have that much more drive to work harder in the future,
Knowing you and knowing your work ethic. Uh Exactly. Exactly. Um Yes, a couple of years, you know who, I didn’t know when I embarked on this adventure two years ago where it was going to lead me where it was going to lead us as a community. But I,
Um I am proud to say that we are definitely going in the right direction as an organization and um we’re, we’re just blessed, we are blessed to be able to have the support that, that we have and from the community.
And how much does that support play a role in the success of keep making it beautiful. You know, we are a very small nonprofit organization. Um Our staff consists of myself and two part time, um my program coordinator and my volunteer coordinator who are both
Part time and so with the work that we do, we could not do it without volunteers. Volunteers are the backbone of this organization. Um I could get all the awards there. There, there are, that’s available.
But if, if, if I don’t have the support of volunteers in this community, we as an an or as an organization cannot be successful. And so like I said, we have some organizations that have been a part of keep making, be beautiful since the very beginning.
That is fantastic. And you draw volunteers from all over making that. Yes, absolutely. Anyone can volunteer. We of course work with our local school system, our public and our private and our charter schools, but also private industries, uh neighborhood watch groups, faith based um organizations,
You name it, our volunteers come from the public, private and nonprofit sectors and faith based community uh as you can see all your hands in the community. Another reason why you got that award uh talk about what, what, what this community means to you,
What keeps driving you to, to move, making the beautiful forward, you know, for me, what keeps driving me is the fact that, you know, I am a making knight. I went to elementary middle high school.
Um Here I left and went off to college and came back. And so I am I am making and so, you know, you, you that drive comes from just being a making night, being proud of being from making and, and, and also, you know, just from my upbringing to,
To always be able to give back and to have a sense of service growing up. I never knew that the service that I was doing, whether it was through church, whether it was through through my schools. Um I never knew that a career could come from that.
So that early foundation of serving and being what I like to refer to as a servant leader has, has prepared me for this role. Uh Well, we have so much more to talk about all the great things that keep making it beautiful house going on.
We’re gonna take a quick break and we’ll be right back. Welcome back. We are talking about 50 years of keep making it beautiful and it has involved a lot of community support. We have Miss Aha Ellen here with us from keep making be beautiful,
Talking all about the great work that you guys do and of course, part of the beauty of making is in those beautiful cherry blossom trees. So tell us a little bit more about the cherry blossom trail and the plans for that. Yes. Well, we are in the process um
Making be beautiful um along with making build parks and beautification um visit making um and our board as a whole uh of looking at how we can um enhance our current cherry blossom trail. Um cherry blossom trees have a a life expectancy of about 20 to 25 years.
Some of our trees have um outlived that life expectancy. Um But there’s time for us to start adding and enhancing to what we currently have. And so we are working on plans as far as f as far as the future with enhancing the cherry blossom trail um
To make it more accessible um to not just our local community, but of course, to our, to our tourists, our visitors who, who come to our beautiful city every year to see the blossoming of the trees. I know we actually talked to a couple from Texas who came to
Make it instead of going to DC for our trade blossom festival. So that has to, has to give you a little bit of pride there. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And so that’s why, you know, one of the main reasons as far as why we want to, to enhance what we currently already have,
We have a beautiful cherry blossom trail. Um We’re trying to make it a little bit more, you know, downtown centered to make the, the, the more convenient for our guests as they travel from all over the world to come see our cherry blossom trees.
Is there a certain number of trees you’re wanting to plant or, or a specific area you’re really wanting to focus on other than you said downtown? Yes. Well, we’re looking at hopefully at least adding 100 more trees to what we already have.
Um You know, of course, a lot of that is gonna also depend on, on, on funding. And so we’re working on um on different proposals, different grants um to be able to support the project. So, you know, maybe next year, this time I could come back and, and,
And give an update on, on where we are on that, but we are working toward having um for next year. Um So it’s a pretty quick turnaround considering, you know, it’s, it’ll be a year before we know it. And so we wanna have things in place for next year’s festival.
If you could just dream up your perfect scenario for that cherry blossom trail. What do you want out of this project? Well, you know what I really want, what most people don’t know is that there are probably 100 variety of different cherry blossom trees.
Of course, we’re familiar here in Macon with the Yoshino. So we wanna continue as far as to um have our Yoshino present. But my vision is to be able to have other variety of cherry blossom trees. Each tree has a different type colored blossom of pink.
And so really to just have a variety of shades of pink, clustered in one area where individuals can walk through, see the various blossoms, the various colors and shades of pink. Um and to, to be able to, for them to be able to share on their tiktoks and Instagrams and Facebook.
Um you know, we’re in that generation now. So to, to make it, I guess to say Instagram friendly. So it’s not on Instagram, it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen. And so that’s what we’re trying to work on. Also introducing um and adding other varieties of cherry blossom
Trees um to our current inventory of Yoshino. And I know keep making it beautiful, working hard at doing that and bringing that vision to life. How can other people get involved in this? Well, um one way how they can get involved and we only sell the cherry
Blossom trees as far as keep making big beautiful during the cherry blossom festival. Um But you know, I encourage people during the festival to please buy trees. We want you to buy trees and not just buy them to plant and nurture the trees.
Um buying the trees is the first step, but the main thing is to get the trees planted. And so that’s the, the one way as far as um um those with the green thumb and even those with not such a green thumb can,
Can, can get a part of it is by, you know, by purchasing and, and planting cherry blossom trees and you all are selling them at the festival this year and you gave me a pretty great update. Yes, we sold during the festival and even despite some of the challenges
With the weather and having to shut down a full day, I am proud to say that we um sold out of all of our cherry blossom trees. Um We sold three variety of, of trees this year. Of course, the Yoshino, but we also sold the um the um Taiwan
Um cherry tree as well as the Helen taf. So close to 500 trees were sold, were purchased during the uh during the cherry blossom festival. Hopefully we’ll be seeing 500 more trees that are around making and viv in the next year. Now, some of those did come from, from tours.
Some of those purchases were from tourists. So, uh but we still should see more pink in making the, you can never have enough. That’s for sure. Exactly. A big part of what you all do too is these community clean ups. Talk a little bit about that and the importance of it. Yes.
Well, you know, most people know us as far as for what we do as far as galvanizing volunteers to be able to um help us and host community clean ups. And so we on average, typically, depending on, upon the time of the year,
There may be a community clean up going on every weekend somewhere in, in Macon Bibb County. And so we are continuing to encourage organizations um to, to join in on our efforts and, and volunteer. Um, we provide the supplies from the litter grabbers to the trash bags, um, g safety vests and gloves.
Um And so we just need the, the hands on deck and so we have been um very blessed to be able to have, have AAA high um response to the community with wanting to do the help with the community clean ups.
And you all just had recently a great community claim for the MLK day of service. Talk a little bit about that day. I think we have some video here of it. Yes. Yes. That one we partnered with um um the great attorney Tabernacle
AM E Church um as well as the um Macon Middle Georgia National Panel Inic Council, which consists of um historically Black Fraternities and sororities, um but also too with local businesses um like Harold’s Barbershop. Um and it, so it was a collaborative effort of, of a variety of different organizations from the faith
Based sector to the um to nonprofit organizations, but even to the, the businesses that are located in that Greenwood Bottom historic district. And so that was about the same second or third clean up that we did in that community. We’ve developed a good partnership with the church in
That community and with the businesses in that community. And so, um we other than in addition to clean ups, we planted um over 30 trees in that same neighborhood as well and we were just showing some pictures and video of it. I know you’re cleaning up trash and planting trees.
It’s hard work, but it looks like everybody was having a pretty good time. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, at the end of the day, we, we all want our community to be beautiful. We all want to do beautiful things. And so, um you know, we have fun,
You get an opportunity to sometimes even meet people that maybe you ordinarily would not have made connections with. But, you know, it, it’s a sense of pride and that’s the main thing. What we’re trying to do is develop a sense of pride um in our community.
Uh We are gonna take a quick break. We’ll be right back with more Central Georgia focus. Welcome back to Central Georgia focus. Today, we are talking about all of the great work that keep bacon, the beautiful does to keep our community looking beautiful. We have
AA Allen with us still talking about the work that they’re doing. And earlier, we talked about an award that you got recently and I wanna bring up a quote from that award because I think it just shows, uh you know, something so great about the work that you do.
You develop strong partnerships with local school district, neighborhood watch programs, local colleges, universities, fraternities, and sororities and other organs, organizations. And why is that so important to make sure that you have all of those people, you know, on deck with. Keep making it beautiful. Yes. Well, at the end of the day,
We all make up our community and we all have various strengths and resources that we can bring to the table. And so, you know, as, as the leader of, of, of keep making, be a beautiful, you know, I have to go out into the community and
Work with various organizations um and know and, and assist them with assisting us. And so it’s just important, I’ve always believed in building bridges and, and partnerships and strong community partnerships. I mean, it is the core of what we have to do to be successful
And we’re going and getting all these people involved. You’re not just saying, hey, we need to go pick up the trash. I know you have, you know, some reasoning behind, you know, why they should be involved and why they, you know, should help out with your organization.
Talk a little bit about, about the why. OK, so the why is I’ve, and whether it’s keep making be beautiful or any nonprofit organization, um we all have a responsibility to our community. And, um and so it’s important that we are connected with our community in
Order for our community to be connected with us as an organization. And so I, I have to do more than just sit in my office and sit at my desk. I have to get out within the community. Um I work very nontraditional work hours on weekends on, on, on, you know,
After hours and, and what not going into communities, meeting with people. And sometimes we have to as leaders, we have to roll up our own sleeves as well. So there’s nothing as far as whether it’s planting trees or picking up trash that I will not do personally myself. I work side by side
With all of our volunteers and I think that helps to also, um, develop and build those relationships, working side by side with the people. And as far as your vision for getting people involved with, keep making it beautiful, what, what would be your big goal of,
Of people getting involved in helping you in your mission? Yeah, I think um you know, once people know who we are and know that we exist, it’s actually really quite easy for uh for them to, to, to get on board. Um The first step though is they have to know that we exist.
Um People will not be able to help us if they don’t know who we are. And so that’s a big part as far as, you know, getting out in the community as I stated earlier, usually, once people know that who we are and what we, what we do,
We have an influx of calls of people wanting to help um with the variety of, of different initiatives we have, whether it’s for community clean ups, whether it’s our recycling events, uh whether it’s our Christmas tree um recycling um and, and other things that we host, we,
We really have a good response from the community once they know who we are and what we do. And you mentioned a couple of opportunities that you have to get involved. What are some other volunteer opportunities that people can get involved with? Um Well, of course,
Our clean ups we are getting uh we’ll be doing more tree planning projects. Um Thanks to a, a generous $50,000 anonymous donation we received. It’s gonna allow us to do more tree planting initiatives which will be able to include volunteers on that. Um We’re also working on doing more,
Working with community gardens um and small grassroot organizations on developing um and assisting with their community gardens. Um And so it’s a, it’s a lot, it’s a lot. We’re focusing on all things beautiful, whether that’s clean ups, tree plantings, community gardens and also our educational components. We go into the schools and,
And talk a lot with the stu the students and educating our students and of course, it’s so important to get them involved as well. Absolutely, because I know it sounds cliche but they are our future. And so we have to instill in them early the importance
Of, of, of civic um responsibility. So yes, and you mentioned a $50,000 grant. That is some great news. Yes, it was actually not a great and it was actually an anonymous donation, a donation. Um And so it definitely caught me. That was a pleasant surprise.
Um But that I think that speaks to the volume of of people seeing the work that we do and, and wanting to be a part in some capacity. And so, yes, and that should go a long way for, you know, some of the projects that you all have to.
Yes, yes. The donors um stated specifically as far as the, the, the native trees um and the locations of where those trees are to be planted. Um But um I mean, it’s definitely a great project. We’re gonna actually start, we’re gonna kick off the first project, planting some trees
In, in Pleasant Hill um in a few weeks. So, um I’m excited about that and what does planting those trees and going out in those communities do for those neighborhoods? Well, it definitely, as far as number one, as far as just the, the the
Obvious as far as from an aesthetic standpoint, the beauty that, that the trees will bring. But also too, as far as the health benefits that comes along as far as with, with trees enhancing our our green space, making sure that our um our playgrounds that our kids have, have,
Have trees for shade purposes. So it’s just a variety of different health benefits on top of just the aesthetics of it all. Uh If people want to contact you to get involved, what’s a good phone number that they can reach you at? They can contact our office at 4783307054.
I have to say that one more time just in case someone didn’t grab a pen fast enough at home. Ok, that’s 4783307054. Some great work that you all are doing. We thank you for the work that you do to keep our community so clean and full of trees and full of life.
Um Just very quickly, we have a couple, couple seconds left. Why do you love what you do? I, I just because I love making and so anything that I can do to enhance my community to make my community better.
I’m I’m going to do it and I’m blessed to have a career that allows me to do so. Uh We thank you so much and we thank you for joining us for Central Georgia focus.
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