Q&A with Stacee Farrell, Executive Director of Keep Athens-Clarke County Beautiful
How often have you thought about pairing innovation and conservation in your own community? We spoke with Stacee about her love for the outdoors, the importance of creativity, and the role beautification projects play in bringing residents together.
Tell us a little more about how you first got involved with Keep Athens-Clarke County Beautiful (KACCB). What made you choose this line of work?
I was working in outreach at the University of Georgia when I had my first introduction to KACCB. I got involved in a MLK Day of Service project with the former director and realized how much I loved what they were doing, so we continued to collaborate on community projects. When that director decided to move on, he asked me if I’d be interested in working for KACCB, and now I have been in the role for 17 years! I have a degree in outreach and resource management, with a background in forestry and environmental education, so it’s sort of a perfect fit for me.
I graduated from college back in 1995, and back then, folks had very little interest in working for the environment. There was no such thing as “sustainability”. I was an avid outdoorswoman, and very interested in recreation activities like rock climbing, mountain biking, and snowboarding. It became a passion of mine, for folks to respect, love, and protect the environment, because I felt that if we didn’t take care of it, those opportunities would be taken away from us. At a very young age, I knew this was what I wanted to do. That was over 25 years ago—today, we’re being challenged with increased environmental degradation and the implications of human impact, but we also have access to more degree programs, advocates, resources, and education on how we can protect our public spaces. I think that’s great.
We’ve heard a lot about the daffodils you’ve planted around the city. Can you share a little more about that project?
Over 10 years ago, we started a pilot project with GDOT, looking into how we might be able to beautify the Athens loop, which is state-mandated property with 11 on and off ramps. We did some research, and actually looked at a neighboring state, North Carolina, to see what they were doing on their public properties and medians. In the end, we decided that daffodils would be the most low-maintenance plant with the highest impact. They’re the first thing to bloom in the spring, and as long as we could protect them afterward, we knew they’d come back prolifically year after year. We planted 2,000 bulbs with 60 volunteers in 2007, and although we had some success, we ended up having several years of drought. We halted the project until the environment seemed more viable, and since that time, we have planted 158,000 daffodil bulbs on seven ramps with the help of more than 600 volunteers. The project gained a lot of interest after the first few ramps, so we were able to bring the Athens-Clarke County Landscape Management Division in to help us dig and drill the rest of the holes for the bulbs. We also purchased each flower with money raised from the citizens of Athens—basically, our community made this project happen, and because of that, we’ve seen more ownership and investment, and greater interest in continuing it. In 2018, our mayor and commission even designated the daffodil as the flower of Athens-Clarke County. We’re very proud of that acknowledgement—beauty is a silent but powerful force that has made a real impact on our community.
Layers of daffodils brightening the Oconee Street on/off ramps in Athens (Photo: Taylor Schwensohn)
Do you have any other favorite projects from over the years? Or even favorite moments?
One of the first years we did the MLK Day of Service, about six organizations came together to try to organize a project for Athens-Clarke County. We decided to clean up an African-American cemetery that had unfortunately fallen into disrepair. We put the event together, not knowing how many people would show up, but about 400 volunteers came. It’s one of my greatest memories. The cemetery itself went deep into the woods, and we organized volunteers by creating an assembly line of people passing trash up the hill and into a dumpster. We found tires and mattresses—people had been illegally dumping there for years and years. We’ve expanded since then and now, the MLK Day of Service is one our largest annual community volunteer projects. We usually have close to 1,000 volunteers, and this past year, we had 17 different projects.
What does your affiliate look forward to in the future? What further impact do you hope to see in Athens-Clarke County?
I think one of our greatest strengths is our ability to collaborate with other community organizations to get things done. We serve as a resource in our community to connect people to local efforts like water conservation and recycling, and we bring people together to work in partnership. When we look at future projects, I think we want to continue to make a greater influence on our youth. Teaching them about stewardship and how they can control the impact humans have on our environment is really important to us. We also want to figure out ways to change people’s behaviors about the way they address their waste, whether we address their littering habits or get them to compost or recycle more. It’s a challenge, but we work really hard through PR campaigns, service events, partner collaborations, and education programs to bring those issues to the forefront. Currently we offer over 20 outreach projects: our Toolshed project, which gives folks access to tools to protect their properties, our Green Schools program, our daffodil project, and our adopt-a-highway programs, to name a few. We wear so many different hats, but we direct most of our energy toward staying creative and innovative on how we can get people involved.
Any advice for people looking to make their communities cleaner, greener, or more beautiful?
Of course, I would say they need to get involved with their local affiliate, and make themselves accessible and available to participating in environmental service projects that affect their communities. Sometimes communities don’t have an affiliate, and that’s okay, but they certainly have other volunteer or nonprofit organizations that can utilize volunteers. I would also suggest that citizens share with their local government or county officials how important a clean, beautiful, and healthy environment is to them, because sometimes we find that communities don’t know how important that is to their residents. It’s important to relay that to city or county officials so that programs like ours continue to get local support.