Q&A with Julie Barwig, Keep Smyrna Beautiful Coordinator
Have you ever wondered how you can get more involved in improving your community’s environment? We spoke with Julie about litter-free concerts, summer camp workshops, and the importance of integrating sustainability into your daily life.
Julie, we’d love to hear about what you do on a day-to-day basis for Keep Smyrna Beautiful. What are some of your main responsibilities?
I am in charge of our volunteer program, so I recruit people, communicate with them, and put together all of the background information to get those programs up and running. I also run all of our social media platforms, so any time we’re posting content, that is 99% me. I make flyers and other marketing materials, and am responsible for most of our day-to-day programming needs running smoothly—writing thank you notes, calculating totals, all that good stuff. I also manage our internship program. I love having college interns in the office! We’ve had two each semester since the beginning of the year, and they have done an amazing job helping with all sorts of different things. They all have such distinct talents, and I love how they utilize those abilities to strengthen our work and the mission.
Do you have a favorite project (or two) that you’ve worked on in the past?
One of my favorite events is Rivers Alive. I love to go and do that every year because it’s so hands on. Last year, I went out with a lacrosse team from a university, and I have never seen people so excited to go out [and pick up litter]. It was November, and super cold. I layered myself in different jackets and things, but they got right into the river and it was just so much fun! I don’t usually get to do that at our other cleanups because I’m so busy running around behind the scenes. At Rivers Alive, you see people coming out with bags and bags of litter from the trails and the water. It’s such a fulfilling experience.
Our litter-free events at the Smyrna summer concert series are also fun. We hand out trash bags to people as they walk in and get settled, because trash cans at well-attended events like that can fill up, leaving people without a proper way to dispose of their trash. We usually distribute a few hundred at each event, and it’s a gentle reminder to people to be good stewards of the environment while they’re out and about in daily life. It’s a fun event for us, because we get to enjoy the concert, and most people get really excited to see us. Sometimes, people say, “No thank you, I already brought my own trash bag,” but others thank us for providing them. Hopefully, one day everyone will bring their own.
What about when you look to the future? What should we be excited about in Smyrna?
We’re currently revamping our education program. Schools have become, at least for us, a little more challenging to get into, so we’ve been trying to figure out a way to continue to educate students about all our different programs—littering, recycling, reducing waste—so this summer, we’ll be partnering with Smyrna Parks & Rec’s summer camp program. We’ll be hosting workshops for three weeks, and we think it will be a great avenue to reach the community. I’m really excited about it.
Why did you choose to get involved in this field? Why does Georgia’s environment matter to you?
I grew up wanting to be an active steward of my environment. I always recycled growing up, and in college, I got more involved. I joined an environmental group, interned for a compost company out in Athens, and also did an internship with a company that built a sustainable town in Panama. It’s always been a passion of mine, but it never really manifested itself in a career option until I joined Keep Smyrna Beautiful. I had been in the nonprofit field for six or seven years when the job posted, and never thought working for the environment would be possible for me, mostly because I majored in social sciences, but I saw that I could use the skillsets I’d built in marketing and managing volunteers and got really excited about it. It’s been wonderful for me to see those two worlds collide.
Any advice for people looking to make their communities cleaner, greener, or more beautiful?
I would say, and this is probably the volunteer manager in me, to get involved in some way. It doesn’t necessarily have to be with an organization; you can also do something at home. I think seeing litter on the side of the road can overwhelm people, and it can be discouraging to find more the next day, but you have to remember that there would be so much more litter if people weren’t doing their part and cleaning up. Even if you’re not doing everything all at once, you’re still making an impact. I’m a big fan of taking that first step, even if it’s just going to the recycling center for the first time to see all the materials that we accept.