Chamber Seeks Volunteers to Fight Litter

By Joel Frady

People live in and visit Ashe County for the beauty of it all, be it the mountains, friendly towns or the New River. But while the landscape itself is breathtaking, the amount of trash cluttering the roads and rivers of the county is not.

The Ashe County Chamber of Commerce is looking to the community to help fight the growing problem.

Cabot Hamilton, executive director of the chamber, said that the issue was brought to the forefront after they held a hospitality café for those involved with the tourism business in Ashe County.

"They discussed a lot of things about how the chamber and the tourism committee could adapt its plan to best promote Ashe County," said Hamilton. "In the process, an item was identified by virtually everybody in the room as a problem, and it was litter and how litter affects people's first impressions when they drive into Ashe County and further impacts their impressions while they're in Ashe County."

Hamilton and Ed Rodgers, head of the tourism development committee for the Chamber, are trying to organize a meeting for people serious about getting the trash off the streets.

"What we are trying to do is identify a group of people who would like to come together and form a grassroots committee - a sub-committee under tourism - that are interested in the problem of litter and all facets of that problem."

Rodgers noted that education will be a big part of the solution.

"We're trying to raise public awareness, more than anything else, that litter is not something that happens spontaneously. It happens through the efforts, or lack of effort, of all the people who live, reside and visit West Jefferson and Ashe County," said Rodgers. "Our goal is to educate and promote a program that starts to have some Grassroots support in getting litter from the highways, roadways and byways of the county.

"I don't know how realistic it is or how successful it will be," he continued, "but I know if we don't do anything it's just going to get worse." He later noted that he believes "it can be fixed - as pretty an area as Ashe County is, it seems to be spoiled by that small percentage that allows trash to blow freely."

Hamilton said that the chamber is only looking for serious volunteers.

"I don't want someone who just wants to sit on a committee," he said. "I want someone who wants to get fully engaged in the process. It's a process that could go for months and on into years."

Hamilton noted that anyone interested does not have to be a member of the chamber, and that they will be seeking "help and assistance from people already involved in littering programs" such as Adopt-a-Highway or the New River Clean-up. Those programs are already uncovering large quantities of garbage in the county: at the 2008 New River Clean-up, held in September, 3,280 pounds of garbage was collected from the river in one morning.

But those programs aren't doing enough, Hamilton noted. He paraphrased Jane Lonon of the Ashe County Arts Council and said that it is time "to try to help make Ashe County citizens litter literate."

To find out more about the littering subcommittee, or how to get involved, contact the Ashe County Chamber of Commerce at (336) 846-9550 or click to www.ashechamber.com.