Community Awareness Week culminates Saturday with county-wide cleanup

By Thomas Wilson
STAR STAFF
twilson@starhq.com

   The Elizabethton/Carter County Chamber of Commerce is calling all chamber members as well as residents and corporate citizens to take part in a major county-wide cleanup tomorrow.
   Clean Teams and citizens will be meeting Saturday morning at 8:30 p.m. in the parking lot of Elizabethton High School.
   "We are going to have a team together of volunteers," said Brent Dugger of the Elizabethton Electric System. "We are trying to work the four-lane from the Highway to Grindstaff Chevrolet."
   The Elizabethton Electric System is providing 2,000 trash bags in cooperation with the Tennessee Valley Authority to anyone or any school that wants to participate.
   Several student groups from county and city school systems have spent the past week undertaking community improvement projects at their schools and around their neighborhoods.
   Elementary school students will be cleaning grounds and landscaping areas around their school buildings, among other activities, according to Elizabethton City Schools Superintendent Dr. Judy Blevins.
   Elizabethton High School clubs have participated in several projects including Clean Streams of America and the National Youth Watershed Summit in Washington, D.C.
   Planned projects include a creek bank cleanup and landscaping for the Stoney Creek and Hunter Volunteer Fire Departments at Unaka Elementary School.
   Happy Valley High School students enrolled in senior English are preparing to design service-learning projects in conjunction with Appalachia C.A.R.E.S. and AmeriCorps, said Williams.
   The projects will identify the needs of various communities in the area and are expected to be under way by mid-October. Projects will be designed, managed and implemented by the students, Williams added.
   Citizens can pitch in by sponsoring a Clean Team's effort by donating $30, or an equivalent sum in materials the group needs, according to the chamber.
   For more information about Community Awareness Week or Saturday morning's cleanup project, call the Chamber of Commerce at 547-3850.