Adopt-a-Block program brings community together

The city of Blytheville's Adopt-a-Block program launched almost one year ago and since then multiple volunteers and organizations have come forward to help beautify the city - one bag of trash at a time.

"The program originated because we started tearing down houses," said Blytheville's code enforcement officer Jan Erby Smith. "And while we were cleaning up the properties, we noticed, okay, there's a lot of trash in these neighborhoods."

According to Smith, no one at city hall has the specific job as a city employee to go out and pick up accumulated trash within the city limits.

"There's nobody that has that specific job," she said. "And so we came up with the idea of adopt-a-block which also gets the citizens involved in doing it."

Smith said that the city receives numerous phone calls from people wanting to volunteer for their city.

"So this kind of was a way to get started and get the community involved in picking up litter in the neighborhoods," Smith said. "As we started, that was the next issue we were seeing aside from the houses."

Moultrie Adopt-a-Block volunteers.

The city's adopt-a-block program offers incentives as well. After six months of being in the program and picking up trash at least three times - the volunteers are assigned a plaque saying that their block is adopted by their organization.

As of to date, Smith says there are seven plaques that have been distributed within the city. Three of those plaques have been presented within the area and four are currently in the process of being distributed to blocks and their volunteer organizations.

Two organizations, the Delta Sorority and AKA Sorority, have had the largest groups to volunteer with for this property beautification program.

"Those are our largest groups right now," Smith said.

As far as community engagement, Smith said that the outreach has been positive but the program is always looking for more people to adopt blocks within the city limits.

"We have a digital forum for people to sign up, so the link is on our Facebook page," Smith said. "If people don't do Facebook then they can even text my telephone number and I can send them the link."

Smith's number is 870-278-0449. Thus far, a total of 89 bags of trash have been collected from the beautification areas and neighborhoods. The volunteer groups have spent about 47 and a half hours working to pick up litter.

Smith said she wants to encourage the community to get more involved and to volunteer.

"I just want to publicly thank the volunteers who have already adopted a block and I just want the community to know that they are volunteering to do this," she said. "Every little piece of trash off the road is a plus in my eyes and it helps the community move in a better direction."

Smith also thanked the sponsors who helped to provide the supplies needed for the clean-up efforts.

The sponsors for the Adopt-a-Block program are Nucor, Black Hills Energy, Dawson Employment Services, NextEra Energy and Crooked Lake Solar.