Q&A with Amy Hartline, Executive Director of Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful
Have you ever considered how education and the environment intersect? We spoke with Amy about youth projects, the power of public art, and what it means to go virtual.
You’ve been leading the charge at Keep Dalton-Whitfield Beautiful (KDWB) for over two years now. What inspired you to get involved?
One of the things I love about this field and what I do is that it positively impacts everyone in the community, no matter the demographic. Not a lot of careers can provide that. Our work helps our county look better, improves environmental health, and cuts back on landfill usage. I’ve been involved in the community since way back in high school—the United Way, local theater volunteering, daycare—then I received my education degree while working at the local library. I led teen programs there, and that generation has an inherent interest in the environment. They passed that on to me. I actually met my predecessor at KDWB at a class she held at the library, and when the position opened, it really appealed to me. I get to do good work benefitting people every single day, and have the autonomy and the freedom to work the way I see fit There’s constant growth and change.
What have been some of your favorite projects at KDWB thus far?
There’s definitely a few! When I first started, we collaborated with a group called Believe Greater Dalton, and together we developed a cleanup across the town called Turn Up Cleanup. We’d get together, listen to music, and eat snacks. Sometimes we’d celebrate with a full concert afterward. My favorite one of those occurred last year, and it involved fixing up a local historic park with a big graffiti and litter issue since the 1980s. Our group, which included 20-30 volunteers, painted a mural reflecting the mountains in the area, and collected 45 bags of trash, including a radio frequency system. We cleared overgrown trails with chainsaws. Afterward, that spot became better known and more frequently used in our community. It’s still clean and free of graffiti after a whole year! I also really love our ballot bin project. We received a Cigarette Litter Prevention Program grant from Keep America Beautiful last year, and I bought four ballot bins, shipped from the UK, to help curb cigarette litter using nudge-based research. The bins have questions on them, and people can vote with their cigarette butts. This encourages them to dispose of them properly instead of littering. It’s been a very fun way to get the conversation going. One of the bins is near a comic and video store, and asks, “Which is better, DC or Marvel?” Marvel had way more butts in it! We also placed one near a bar that hosts a lot of concerts that asks people to vote on country music versus rock and roll. We emptied them this month, and recycled 700 cigarette butts from them. I did a quick little survey of the area and found about 20 cigarette butts on the ground within a 10 ft. radius, which formerly averaged 200 cigarette butts. It’s a huge improvement!
How have you adapted your activities since the onset of the pandemic?
Our mission is to empower the residents themselves to make positive and eco-friendly changes. Because of the pandemic, we’ve had to shift the way we do things, but I’ve found we’re still able to reach that goal. The biggest thing we’ve done is to host Earth Day online. We collaborated with eight different organizations, and led a full day of classes on Zoom and Facebook Live. We had over 1,000 people attend! We covered a whole bunch of stuff—we had little baby turtles from a colony at our local college, and I led a session on how to create a compost bin out of a gallon-sized paint bucket. That was especially fun, because I had moms sending in photos of their kids making them. I worried about how people might receive the idea, but it went really well.
Right now, we’re planning for our Conasauga River Watershed Cleanup. Now that we know people are much less likely to contract COVID-19 from touching objects, we feel comfortable hosting socially distanced, outdoor activities with gloves and sanitizers. We’re setting up hand sanitizer stations along the river, and we’ll do seven different sites on same day. I’m excited to do our first big cleanup since all this has been going on.
What does your affiliate look forward to in the future? What further impact do you hope to see in Whitfield County?
When we first did our “Earth Worth Saving” mural in 2015, you didn’t see much art downtown. Since then, public art has really sprung up in the area, and we’ve seen big improvements in litter prevention, so we’re continuing that work. Over the past eight months, we’ve been working on our first sculpture. We hope to have it installed by the end of the year for our 30th anniversary in a local pocket park. The site has a fountain that has been turned off for years and years, so we’re refurbishing that and creating new plantings there in addition to adding the sculpture.
I’ve also been working on several projects with the Girl Scouts. For one, we created wraps for trashcans in three different locations. They’re personalized, artistic, and engaging, so people notice them and use them more often. In another, we’re developing a virtual hybrid badge based on fast fashion and sustainability. We’re working on doing a tour of a clothing recycling center and virtual interviews with the people involved. I love the education aspect of this job—we’re trying to teach local youth to understand these issues globally, but apply what they’ve learned locally.
Any advice for people looking to make their communities cleaner, greener, or more beautiful?
I would say to collaborate. That is the biggest thing for us. We wouldn’t have been able to complete so much of what we’ve done without the awesome partners we have. We get together with them and brainstorm, strengthen each other’s ideas and build each other up. It creates massive change. Don’t be afraid to ask—sometimes, the answer will surprise you on what somebody else can help you accomplish.