For the past ten years, Keep Cincinnati Beautiful, Water Works and the Cincinnati Park Board have teamed up to provide residents and visitors a more gratifying impression of our city by beautifying locations along our city's major highways.

The Color Cincinnati Beautiful! Daffodils & DayLilies program has made significant progress in the past decade. Over a quarter of a million bulbs have been planted along Cincinnati's highways at locations such as the Mitchell Ave. exit I-75 and the I-471 median. Research shows that littering is often reduced in an area that has been beautified.

However, we need the support of the community to continue our efforts. Check in your third quarter Cincinnati Water Works bill for a special envelope to return with your donation to support this program. Proceeds will help purchase and plant flowers along the city's highways. Donations to the Color Cincinnati Beautiful program are tax deductible and can be made by clicking here or by calling (513) 352-4380. Credit cards, debit cards, and checks payable to Keep Cincinnati Beautiful are accepted. Checks should be mailed to 801 Plum St., Room 16, Cincinnati, OH, 45202.

For more information, contact Josman Rodriguez at (513) 352-4383 or via e-mail at josman.Rodriguez@cincinnati-oh.gov.

CISV (formerly Children's International Summer Villages), The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Chatfield College and Keep Cincinnati Beautiful hosted a multinational group of adults that spent two weeks comparing the different meanings of freedom in several cultures. The group showcased their findings and shared them with the community at Chatfield College at Findlay Market on Friday July 20th.

Participants of the International People's project (IPP) came from nine countries and were selected based on their cultural sensitivity, interest in history and politics, creativity and ability to work as a team. The goal of the visit was to learn about human freedoms based on the historical context of the United States period of slavery, and to use that study to understand the current context of these and other freedom issues.

The IPP delegates partnered with KCB to create murals that will be displayed at Chatfield College, and will move to City Hall this fall and then placed on boarded up windows in Over-The -Rhine. "These panels are incredible. I am amazed at what they were able to accomplish in only two weeks. Jan Brown Checco (the lead artist) has a great ability to bring out the artist that we all have inside." - Linda Holterhoff, KCB Executive Director.

In conjunction with Focused City Services we are bringing our "Don't Trash The 'Nati... Be The Change" campaign to the streets of Avondale.

During the summer, we took our van (custom-fit with a basketball hoop!) to spots throughout the neighborhood offering friendly basketball games while promoting KCB's litter prevention messages among the participants. KCB passes out "Don't Trash The 'Nati... Be The Change" t-shirts and sport drinks among 18-30 year-old-males. The WIZ (WIZF Radio One) provides the entertainment on site with their van playing music and producing live call backs.

This "guerrilla" marketing campaign reaches an average of 2,000 youth during the summer months. Studies show that almost 70% of the litter in our streets is produced by 18-30 year old males. The "Be the Change" program is directly targeted to this important population segment. Keep Cincinnati Beautiful would like to thank The Schott Foundation for its support of this program.

On Saturday, July 21st KCB partnered with youth from Avondale's baseball teams and the Community Council to finish removing debris from an illegal dumpsite in Avondale.

The teams are funded through the Reds Community Fund, which encourages youth to perform community service. Starting at 9:00 a.m. thirteen players and their coaches pitched in and removed about 100 tires and a dumpster full of debris.

The total cleanup of Blair Court has removed approximately 35,000 lbs. of debris and almost 300 tires this year.

* $25 Individual

* $40 Group/Organization

* $100 Sponsor

* $500 Corporate

It's easy to donate! Visit our website and click on "Make a Donation". From there, you can designate your sponsorship level - simply write it in under "comments". You can also send a check or money order to: Keep Cincinnati Beautiful c/o Friends 801 Plum Street, Room 16 Cincinnati, OH 45202

Thanks for being a friend to Keep Cincinnati Beautiful!

Mary Ann Berry from Camp Washington sent us this photo. Her granddaughter is already committed to keeping her community beautiful. This photo proves that she has a natural inclination for litter patrol.

If you have a photo to share with us, click here and send it right away! We'll make sure to showcase it in our newsletter or on our website.

GIVE TAP WATER ANOTHER CHANCE
by Solvie Karlstrom for National Geographic The Green Guide

From childhood, we're told to drink at least eight glasses of water each day. Unfortunately more and more Americans drink those eight glasses out of plastic bottles-a convenience that stuffs landfills, clogs waterways and guzzles valuable fossil fuels.

Last year Americans spent nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water, and then tossed over 22 billion empty plastic bottles in the trash. In bottle production alone, the more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. drain 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year.

Though the sale and consumption of bottled water is still on the rise, certain policy makers and activists have taken steps to reduce it. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in June that bars city government from using city money to supply municipal workers with bottled water, and New York City launched an ad campaign this summer encouraging residents and tourists to forego the bottled beverage for the city's tap, long considered some of the best water in the country.

Even restaurateurs are doing their part to keep water bottles out of landfills. Upscale eateries in Boston, New York and San Francisco have taken bottled water off the menu, offering filtered tap instead. At the Italian restaurant Incanto in San Francisco, carafes used to serve filtered tap water are refilled 2,000 times on average before they're cracked and retired. Owner Mark Pastore explains that leaving bottled water off the menu is "a tiny thing that we can do to be a little more sustainable."

Not only does bottled water contribute to excessive waste, but it costs us a thousand times more than water from our faucet at home, and it is, in fact, no safer or cleaner.