Local Business Beautification Projects Completed

You may have noticed a few improvements around some local organizations recently. In 2021, Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful awarded beautification grants to local organizations and businesses for the first year. The nonprofit’s beautification grants are in honor of National Planting Day, but celebrate all manner of beautification efforts.

The Boys and Girls Club had volunteers, employees, and their youth all work together to reestablish the plant beds around their signs and planters near the front of their entrance.

Six businesses and organizations were selected for their beautification project including 108 North Pentz Building, the Artistic Civic Theatre, Raspberry Row, Whitfield-Murray Historical Society, Boys and Girls Club of Chatooga, Gordon, Murray, and Whitfield, and Looper Speech and Hearing Center. The grants given ranged from $350 to $500.  

Katie McCreery-Scarbor of Looper Speech and Hearing Center said about working on their project that focused on an outdoor seating area and entrance sign, "I'm not sure we've ever been more excited about dirt! We were lucky to discover that, when tilling the area around the sign, there was already top soil present rather than just red clay. That certainly made planting the azaleas easier--all we had to do was supplement with a little Miracle Grow."

Many of the projects included new landscaping and plantings while others required fresh paint and structures.

When walking downtown you may spot the improvement by Raspberry Row. Raspberry Row installed a new bench crafted by Machine Craft Inc. outside its storefront. Going a little farther, you’ll come across new plantings by the Boys and Girls Club on Underwood Road.

When writing about their goal of beautifying the entrance, Casey Crump said “Part of our mission is to enable young people, especially those who need us the most, to reach their full potential; this project helps create an opportunity to do just that. Taking care of the club from the inside out helps us teach our youth on the importance of self-care also.”

Many of us can learn the importance of both self-care and care for the planet through beautification projects such as these. Congratulations, once again, to all of the Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful 2021 Business Beautification Grant Recipients.

Bring One for the Chipper

Save the Date for the Annual Christmas Tree and Electronics Recycling Event

People were decking the halls and stringing the lights as soon as the turkey leftovers were put away this year! If you are decorating for Christmas and plan to use a live tree, make sure you have a plan for after the holiday! Save the date for Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful’s Annual Bring One for the Chipper Event. Over the years, this event has recycled hundreds of live Christmas trees and multiple tons of electronics.

Recycle your live, natural, undecorated Christmas tree after the holiday season and your used electronic devices at The Home Depot on 875 Shugart road on Saturday, January 8, 2022. From 9:00 am to 12:00 pm volunteers will be on site to collect your natural trees and electronics for recycling.

We will also be collecting flattened cardboard boxes as we did last year for the first time! If you have big cardboard boxes that won’t fit in your curbside bin, flatten them out and bring them along!

There is NO charge for trees and most electronics. The only fee is a $10.00 fee for CRT, or Cathode Ray Tube, television sets and computer monitors. Typical CRT TVs have four to eight pounds of lead in them requiring them to have extra-special handling when they are being recycled and results in a higher cost.

Please remove all ornaments and the base from your trees. Electronics will be sent to a third-party recycler. Volunteers will not be removing any data from your devices before sending them onto recycling. Please make sure you wipe the data from laptops, phones, etc. before dropping off.

Participant have their pick of seed packets while supplies last and will remain in their car to help the event remain safe in 2020.

Thank you to the following event sponsors and organizers: Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful, Whitfield County Public Works, Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority, and The Home Depot.

For more information or if you want to volunteer at the event call 706-278-5001, or visit Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful online: http://www.keepdaltonwhitfieldbeautiful.org

Volunteers from Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful and the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority help a resident unload their tree for recycling.

Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful Announces Six Business Beautification Recipients

Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful is pleased to announce the recipients of their first Business Beautification Micro-Grants for 2021.

Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful established their beautification grants in honor of National Planting Day which is celebrated through the end of November. Businesses across Whitfield County and the City of Dalton were invited to apply for funding to implement a project related to beautifying the community. Each project aims to improve the visual aspects of the facility or adjoining streetscape. Beautification grants range from a minimum of $100 to a maximum of $500.

Past beautification grants from Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful have been used to create native plant gardens and wildlife sanctuaries.

This year the following business and projects were awarded a grant from Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful.

1.      108 North Pentz Building - Their project to place four planters along the sidewalk of the building

2.      Artistic Civic Theatre - This project will be focused on paving the parking lot, replanting shrubs, and fixing awnings

3.      Raspberry Row - They will be replacing the bench in the front of the shop on the sidewalk with a new one made by a local craftsman

4.      Whitfield-Murray Historical Society - This organization (pictured) will be focusing on painting the exterior doors and windows.

5.      Boys and Girls Club of Chattooga, Gordon, Murray, and Whitfield Counties - Club Refresh will focus on beautifying the front entrance of the club from the drive to the front doors.

6.      Looper Speech and Hearing Center - This group will be beautifying their outdoor seating area and sign with planters, and perennials.

Projects will be completed by March 1, 2022 and each recipient will submit a project summary by March 18, 2022 to showcase their work. Visit Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful’s website www.KeepDaltonWhitfieldBeautiful.org or follow them on Facebook to get updates on the progress of these projects.  

National Planting Day is celebrated annually by Keep America Beautiful in the fall as an opportunity to encourage volunteers to plant native species restoring ecological balance to the environment while creating greener, more beautiful communities. Learn more about this event at www.kab.org.Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful is pleased to announce the recipients of their first Business Beautification Micro-Grants for 2021. Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful established their beautification grants in honor of National Planting Day which is celebrated through the end of November. Businesses across Whitfield County and the City of Dalton were invited to apply for funding to implement a project related to beautifying the community. Each project aims to improve the visual aspects of the facility or adjoining streetscape. Beautification grants range from a minimum of $100 to a maximum of $500.

Shaw Industries Sponsors Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful’s Sustainability Efforts

Interview with Shaw’s Sustainability Specialist Erin Helm

In 2020, Shaw Industries supported Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful (KDWB) as their sole Sustainability sponsor. This sponsorship is what has led to the restoration project for the fountain on Morris St. that has been remade into a planter with the help of Dalton Public Works and Fiddleheads. Shaw’s sponsorship has helped KDWB commission a new public sculpture out of reclaimed metal by Chris Beck that will be placed on the upcycled fountain. To celebrate their sponsorship, Erin Helm, Shaw’s Sustainability Specialist spoke about what inspires her and Shaw’s goals in sustainability, material health, and how what choices we make impact the world around us every single day.

Erin project manages all Raw Material Substitutions and all of the product and raw chemical information for training, marketing, sales, and customer service.

Erin started working at Shaw as a designer before moving into sustainability, “I knew nothing about the flooring industry when I started my job at Shaw! I was fresh out of college and had no idea what I was doing. I think what surprised me the most was all of the moving pieces that go into creating a flooring product--it’s astounding!” While working at Shaw, Erin got her start in sustainability as chair of the sustainability committee at the Shaw Create Centre Campus where they sponsored adopt-a-mile, river and trail clean-ups, hosted recycling education events, started composting stations on campus, helped eliminate all single-use plastic items on campus, and organized events for Earth Day and an e-waste recycling event!

In her career Erin learned about everything that went into flooring design and changes in sustainability over the past few years, “I was surprised by all of the science involved with what I do now. My background is in design, so coming into a sustainability role and learning about chemical components of our products has been really interesting! Something else that was very interesting was to see the shift of sustainability from just traditional measures like Waste, Water, and Energy to encompass things like Material Health and Social Justice! As a designer and creative, I love seeing how Shaw weaves sustainability into every aspect of a product story.” The material health of flooring makes sure that the chemicals in the product are safe for the consumer and the planet.  With something that is present in every building we walk into, considering the repercussions of certain chemicals on our life-long health is critical.

So, for those of us choosing flooring or any other product and trying to consider the environment and our needs, what should we be looking for? Erin says, “When I am looking at purchasing any product beyond the design and functionality, I ask myself three questions.

1. Is it made well/will it last?

2. Is it made by a responsible company?

3. Are there any chemicals of concern in this product?

Shaw checks all of those boxes for me with their product warranties, social responsibility and community outreach efforts and third-party certifications that cover Material Health (Cradle to Cradle) and Indoor Air Quality (Green Label Plus, FloorScore and GreenGuard) concerns!”

Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful appreciates Shaw as their sole Sustainability sponsor for 2020. Without the support of their sponsors, the work they do throughout the year to create a clean, green, and beautiful place to live would not be possible.