Keep Hutto Beautiful and the city of Hutto are asking residents, organizations and businesses to help identify areas in the community with litter problems via an online survey.
The survey is the first phase of the revitalized Adopt-A-Spot program—a coordinated effort between the city of Hutto and Keep Hutto Beautiful, a Hutto conservation nonprofit, to encourage groups to "adopt" a section of the community that has a litter problem.
"We want to get more people involved in beautifying efforts and maybe being more conservation-minded," said Larry Foos, director of Parks and Recreation for Hutto.
The Adopt-A-Spot program is comprised of two key phases for both the city and the environmental group. Keep Hutto Beautiful will first administer and collect the results from its litter assessment survey, which will be available to the general public and distributed to businesses in the community, as well.
"The survey is going to ask a couple of different things. Do the streets have more visible litter than a year ago? What is being done to reduce litter in the community?" said Jessica Romigh, chairperson of the Board of Directors for Keep Hutto Beautiful.
Hutto residents are asked to participate in the survey, which can be found on
Keep Hutto Beautiful's website beginning Jan. 20. The survey will run online until Feb. 20.
Keep Hutto Beautiful will additionally conduct an internal litter survey and, with help from the city of Hutto staff, use the two combined surveys to create a list of areas in Hutto that have litter problems. Beginning sometime in March, organizations will be able to see the list of problem areas in Hutto and volunteer to adopt a location.
Foos said the city will ask organizations to clean the areas at least four times a year. Cleaning materials such as gloves, bags and trash pickers will be provided by the city. After an organization has successfully cleaned its adopted area twice it will be recognized with a sign at the location, as well as recognitions in newsletters, social media and other platforms.
Romigh reports that multiple community groups have already expressed interest in adopting spots throughout Hutto during Keep Hutto Beautiful's outreach events.
The Adopt-A-Spot program was created by the city of Hutto in 2014 after receiving a grant from CAPCOG, but the local government reached out to Keep Hutto Beautiful after the program's participation numbers dwindled.
"I wanted to revitalize the program. Any effort to beautify the city is a good thing," Foos said.
In December, Keep Hutto Beautiful received a $1,000 Green Bag Grant from H-E-B for education and marketing for the Adopt-A-Spot program.
Hutto residents and organizations will soon be able to participate in the program. Keep Hutto Beautiful will
launch the survey on its website Jan. 20 and publish the analysis in mid-March. At that time, organizations will be able to adopt an area in Hutto to clean up.
"T
his is probably just the first step in a very conservation-oriented effort by the city and Keep Hutto Beautiful," Foos said.
