Thank you to every­one who par­tic­i­pated in the 2011 20 Minute Cleanup! Over 1500 peo­ple in Howard County par­tic­i­pated and removed many, many bags of trash and recy­cling.  Not every­one counted their haul, but for those who did, the total was 141 bags of trash and 32 bags of recycling.

Thank you all for mak­ing Howard County cleaner and greener.  By work­ing together, we made our neigh­bor­hoods more beau­ti­ful and less trash will end up in our envi­ron­ment, par­tic­u­larly our streams, rivers and the Bay.

That is really won­der­ful and shows the great vol­un­teer spirit in Howard County.   On a per­sonal note, It was very inspir­ing to get all of your won­der­ful emails and pos­i­tive com­ments about the project.  I hope that every­one felt the same way, doing a small part of a larger good.

In the office com­plex where I work, we had a great day with about 75 employ­ees, includ­ing the County Exec­u­tive, doing a quick pick up of trash around the Elli­cott City cam­pus and sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hood. Tak­ing a 20 minute break to do a cleanup was surprisingly fun.

An extra THANK YOU goes out to the fol­low­ing groups and indi­vid­u­als.  Thank you so much for doing the cleanup and for let­ting us know that you were out there.  We appre­ci­ate you very much!

We’re sure there are more of you out there, so if you would like to be included in the list and totals, please send an email to 20minutecleanup@howardcountymd.gov .

This is the sec­ond year for this project and I hope that it grows every year and builds aware­ness about lit­ter­ing and work­ing together to get rid of it.

Thanks again to all, and see you again next year.  If we can just get that beau­ti­ful weather again, we’ll be all set.