Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka and Keep America Beautiful-Newark, the new local branch of national nonprofit Keep America Beautiful®, held the city’s first volunteer Keep America Beautiful Great American Cleanup® event today in the city’s South Ward.

Joining Mayor Baraka for the South Ward community cleanup were Keep America Beautiful President and CEO Helen Lowman; City of Newark Chief Sustainability Officer Nathaly Agosto Filion; Alison Mulligan, Mars Wrigley Confectionery US, which is opening a new market hub in Newark in 2020 and is a significant supporter of Keep America Beautiful and its local branch; and Malkia King, Executive Director of Keep America Beautiful-Newark.

More than 100 volunteers took to the South Ward streets after a kickoff ceremony concluded at the Clinton Avenue Community Sound Stage. At the ceremony, Mayor Baraka announced the recipients of the 2019 Love Your Block Mini-Grants Program, an initiative designed to connect residents with City departments and community organizations with hyper-local neighborhood beautification and community building projects. The cleanup was followed by a volunteer celebration with Newark residents receiving family-sized home recycling bins as part of the day’s festivities.

“Everything we do in Newark is done in strong collaboration with partners,” said Mayor Baraka. “We’re all about bringing community members together in the spirit of improving our neighborhoods and working hand in hand to accomplish our common goals. I also want to congratulate the winners of the Love Your Block Mini-Grants Program, and look forward to seeing how they put these grants into action to create a better and stronger Newark.”

Keep America Beautiful-Newark and the City of Newark will conduct additional cleanups in April and May: April 13, West Ward; April 27, Central Ward; May 4, North Ward; and May 11, East Ward. For more information about upcoming events, click here.

The annual Keep America Beautiful Great American Cleanup is the nation’s largest community improvement program, engaging Keep America Beautiful and its network of more than 600 community-based affiliates, branches and partnering organizations to conduct cleanups, green-ups, and fix-ups in thousands of communities across the country throughout spring.

“Keep America Beautiful-Newark was thrilled to kick off our new branch of Keep America Beautiful with a Great American Cleanup volunteer event, thanks to the support of the City of Newark and our partner Mars Wrigley Confectionery,” said Ms. King. “We greatly appreciate the encouragement of Mayor Baraka, demonstrated by his participation in today’s cleanup. We know he believes in the tri-sector partnership of bringing together government with nonprofits and the business community to effect change. Keep America Beautiful-Newark, working closely with the City of Newark, will pursue transforming Newark’s public spaces into beautiful places.”

Mars has a long history of partnering with Keep America Beautiful as a key corporate partner, working with the organization for more than 60 years to educate America's youth about environmental stewardship and improve local communities nationwide.

"At Mars, we are working hard today to create the world we want to see tomorrow and that starts with taking care of the communities we operate in,” said Ms. Mulligan. “With the opening of our new market hub in 2020 and joining forces with Keep America Beautiful, we’re committing to Newark that we are here to further the revitalization of Newark for Associates and residents alike.”

National sponsors of the 2019 Keep America Beautiful Great American Cleanup include the Altria Group, The Dow Chemical Company, The Glad Products Company, Niagara Bottling, Inc., Northrop Grumman Corporation and Sazerac Company.

About Keep America Beautiful
Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s leading community improvement nonprofit organization, inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful strives to End Littering, Improve Recycling and Beautify America’s Communities. We believe everyone has a right to live in a clean, green and beautiful community, and shares a responsibility to contribute to that vision. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 600 Keep America Beautiful affiliates, millions of volunteers, and the collaborative support of corporate partners, social and civic service organizations, academia, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals. Join us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Donate and take action at kab.org.

About Mars, Incorporated
Mars is a family-owned business with more than a century of history making diverse products and offering services for people and the pets people love. With more than $35 billion in sales, the company is a global business that produces some of the world’s best-loved brands: M&M’s®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, MILKY WAY®, DOVE®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS®, EXTRA®, ORBIT®, 5™, SKITTLES®, UNCLE BEN’S®, MARS DRINKS and COCOAVIA®. Mars also provides veterinary health services that include BANFIELD®Pet Hospitals, Blue Pearl®, VCA® and Pet Partners™. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars operates in more than 80 countries. The Mars Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – inspire its more than 100,000 Associates to create value for all its partners and deliver growth they are proud of every day. For more information about Mars, please visit http://www.mars.com. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

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