KNIB News
Exclusive Media Partnership
Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful is pleased to have WTVO Channel 17/FOX39 as our exclusive media partner. This partnership will give us significant exposure in the Stateline area through news stories, event coverage, live broadcasts and volunteer support.
In addition, we are able to provide WTVO Channel 17/FOX39 with information on their website for the Stateline Green initiative. This is a unique alliance between our organizations and represents a strong commitment to protecting our environment through recycling, litter prevention and beautification as well as to increase public awareness.
The Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful and WTVO Channel 17/FOX39 partnership is forged to improve the service of two community minded organizations in their common goal of keeping the Stateline Green.
Have You Heard The Good News?
Suppose you could make a donation to support Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful and it wouldn't cost you a penny? Well, Now you can!
How many times a day do you use a search engine? By using a new search engine powered by Yahoo called GOODSEARCH you can make a donation to Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful every time you perform a search. Goodsearch can support KNIB with every search and it doesn't cost you a thing -- the money they donate comes from the advertisers.
Search engines generated more than $6 billion in revenue last year. Goodsearch donates half its revenue, about a penny per search, to the charity you designate. You get those same good results from Yahoo and you give a donation to KNIB at the same time.
Next time you need to do a search use Goodsearch.com and enter Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful as your charity of choice. You get the Yahoo power and we get the penny.
And who says a penny isn't worth anything any more?
2007 Metals & Electronics Drives Are Tops
Over 95 tons of scrap metal items were collected in the two 2007 Metals and Electronics Drives.
Of special interest this year is the fact that almost 300 computer monitors were recycled. Each computer monitor has several pounds of lead inside the tube which needs to be removed before anything else can be done with the monitor. Also, computer monitors are one of the few items of which every part is completely recycleable.
Other items we recycled included 95refrigerators and freezers which need to have the freon removed from the cooling system. We partner with Al Grace Appliance to remove this dangerous gas before the refrigerators and freezers are shredded into recyclable materials.
Executive Director Lori Gummow commented, "There were more local households than ever before participating in this spring drive. We recorded 1,320 cars coming through our line, the most ever for a single year. Over 120 local volunteers gave more than 400 hours of their time to make this project the success it is. We couldn;t do it without their help!"
The Metals and Electronics Drive will be repeated in 2008 on May 3rd and October 4th, 2007. We will be located, again, at the Machesney Park Mall, in the south parking lot between the JCPenney store and Machesney Road between 9am and 3pm.
This is an all volunteer effort. If you would like to volunteer to work at the fall drive please call our office at (815) 637-1343 to register.
Thanks to our 2007 Metals and Electronics Drive Sponsors:
Jos. Behr & Sons
Riverside Community Bank
Rubloff Development
Al Grace Appliance
Zanocco Ace Hardware
Great Harvest Bread
Gray's IGA Super Markets
Port-A-Jon of Roscoe
2007 Clothing Drives Top All Records
Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful's 2007 Clothing Drives were an overwhelming success. Well over 6,300 Northern Illinois families donated their excess clothing to help those in need at home and in other countries at the three clothing drives of 2007.
Located at each of the seven Hilander Stores in the area, over 400 volunteers helped collect a record 313,370 pounds of good wearable clothing. This brings the total of clothing collected to over 1,750,000 pounds since Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful started the clothing drives in 
1999.
The clothing collected here is trucked to Milwaukee where a contractor packages it for shipment overseas. Rather than sorting either here or in Milwaukee the clothing is shipped in its original bags to its destination where it is then sorted and prepared for sale in local flea market type areas. The proceeds of the sale of these goods in places like Africa or Honduras provides employment for local residents who process the donation on their sites. The cost of clothing, a small fraction of what new clothing would cost the local population, helps to defray the cost of shipping from here to Milwaukee, then transshipping to ports where it is loaded on ships for transport to the destination countries. Approximately ten percent of the clothing donated remains in the U.S. where it goes to less advantaged areas of the country.
In this way, we not only provide good wearable clothing to those in developing countries, we are also helping to provide employment for local people who process the donations and make it ready for sale, said Lori Gummow, Executive Director of Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful.
Clothing drives are conducted three times each year. The 2008 drives are scheduled for May 10th, July 12th and October 11th, 2008 at each of the seven area Hilander Grocery Stores.
Other co-sponsors of these events included; SM Transportation, Paper Recovery, Inc., and Rubloff Development .
1999. The clothing collected here is trucked to Milwaukee where a contractor packages it for shipment overseas. Rather than sorting either here or in Milwaukee the clothing is shipped in its original bags to its destination where it is then sorted and prepared for sale in local flea market type areas. The proceeds of the sale of these goods in places like Africa or Honduras provides employment for local residents who process the donation on their sites. The cost of clothing, a small fraction of what new clothing would cost the local population, helps to defray the cost of shipping from here to Milwaukee, then transshipping to ports where it is loaded on ships for transport to the destination countries. Approximately ten percent of the clothing donated remains in the U.S. where it goes to less advantaged areas of the country.
In this way, we not only provide good wearable clothing to those in developing countries, we are also helping to provide employment for local people who process the donations and make it ready for sale, said Lori Gummow, Executive Director of Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful.
Clothing drives are conducted three times each year. The 2008 drives are scheduled for May 10th, July 12th and October 11th, 2008 at each of the seven area Hilander Grocery Stores.
Other co-sponsors of these events included; SM Transportation, Paper Recovery, Inc., and Rubloff Development .
Cigarette Litter Campaign in Downtown Rockford
Downtown Rockford has been hit with volunteers from Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful and the City of Rockford in a blitz to determine the amount of cigarette litter on downtown streets.
Surveying several blocks of the downtown Rockford walking mall area, volunteers collected over 1,800 cigarette butts. "The number of cigarette butts on the street simply amazed me," said Lori Gummow, Executive Director of Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful, local affiliate of Keep America Beautiful.
Cigarette litter is a real challenge for communities across the U.S. Lack of awareness, lack of ash receptacles and ordinances that move smokers outdoors all increase cigarette littering. Individuals who would never litter beverage cans or paper packaging typically do not consider tossing cigarette butts on the ground littering. Dropping partially-smoked cigarettes, cigarette butts, matches, lighters and packaging to the ground is littering. And it's adding up.
Research shows that smokers will litter cigarette butts, lighters, mat
ches and packaging material if an ash receptacle is not readily available. Cigarette litter occurs most often at Transition Points. Transition Points are those places where a person must discontinue smoking before proceeding. A bus stop, a store entrance, building loading docks, walkways leading to government buildings and similar places are the Transition Points in a neighborhod. A well-designed ash receptacle helps send a message about proper disposal of cigarette litter. Small openings indicate the receptacle is for items of trash like cigarettes, butts, matches, lighters and packaging. The best designs also have side openings which reduce the impact of rain and other inclement weather. Over 80% of smokers say they would place their buts in receptacles if suitable ones were available
As a result of this survey the City of Rockford will receive a grant from Keep America Beautiful to fund the purchase of cigarette recptacles and "pocket ashtrays" which can be distributed by downtown merchants.
Environmental Nonprofit Turns New Leaf
The change of name from Winnebago/Rockford Clean & Beautiful to Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful was announced in April, 2007 at a news conference where Winnebago County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen and Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey joined Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful Executive Director, Lori Gummow, to unveil the new image.
The news conference and reception was held at Riverside Community Bank in Machesney Park on rt. 173. Village Green Nursery transformed the bank's lobby into a garden with lush, green plants, and guests were treated to ice cream sundaes provided by A La Mode Ice Cream & Desserts.
Other Attendees included Mayor Darryl Lindberg of Loves Park, Mayor Linda Vaughn of Machesney Park, Village President Dale Adams of Rockton, Board Members of Keep Northern Illinois, members and friends.
Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful will continue to provide the award-winning environmental programs it has offered for nearly 20 years.
What Was Accomplished in 2007
- Educated over 1,100 children on the importance of environmental stewardship in Winnebago County classrooms
- Presented the environmental message to 603 adults in programs
- Gathered 313,370 pounds of clothing for reuse in America and developing countries
- Recycled 194,750 pounds of scrap metal saved from the landfill and recycled
- Involved 7,700 households in the first County-wide recycling effort
- Removed 61,500 pounds of litter from 75 miles of Winnebago County and municipal roads
- Accepted 180 tons of recyclable materials at our Recycling Center
- Collected over 12,000 crayons to be remolded and distributed to local children
- Over 30,000 Christmas trees were chipped into mulch for home landscaping saving them from the landfill
- Involved 1,058 community volunteers in the Great American Cleanup
- Returned $16.18 to the community for every dollar invested in us
Contact KNIB | 5417 N. Second Loves Park, IL 61111 | Phone : 815-637-1343 | Fax : 815-637-0525