KCCB holds Fall Sweep

By PAMELA GRANT

Cove Leader-Press

“This is our community. People sometimes see it as someone else’s problem, but if you don’t do anything about it, nobody else will,” said Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful Executive Director Roxanne Flores. “Be the change in your community.”

Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful (KCCB) hosted their 4th annual Fall Sweep, teaming up with the Pink Warrior Angel’s Pink Warrior Dash Saturday morning from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. 

More than 100 volunteers teamed up to collect a total of 680 pounds of trash and 240 pounds of recyclable items.

Flores said that Keep Texas Beautiful encouraged KCCB to host a Fall Sweep event back in 2020. During their second year, the event happened to coincide with the Pink Warrior Dash, and the two hosts decided to team up.

“Why don’t we just have one big party where we can share our resources…and support our many causes…Someone might come to the run and not know anything about KCCB and vice versa,” said Flores. “It’s just a great opportunity to get together and share.”

Saturday’s Fall Sweep was Flores’ final public event with KCCB. 

October 8 will be Flores’ last day with KCCB.

“It’s bittersweet because it’s my last event…and I’m really excited to see how far KCCB has come in the six years that I’ve been here, and I look forward to seeing them continue to be successful. I encourage all of the residents to continue to support KCCB and always take care of their community,” said Flores.

At this year’s event, Flores made sure to encourage recycling, especially with participants in the Pink Warrior Dash, asking them to at least make sure that their water bottles make it into the recycling bin. Even just doing that one thing can make a difference. Even just picking up a single piece of trash will add up.

“Recycle water bottles because it keeps it out of the landfills and allows us to be more environmentally friendly and sustainable,” said Flores. “I always tell people to recycle or repurpose, just keep it out of the landfill.”

Miranda Deleon, an ESL Interventionist at Hettie Halstead Elementary School brought five of her students to the event. She said that she wanted to give the students the opportunity to volunteer within their community and to help give their school a good name.

“It’s for the kindness. We want to help keep the Earth clean,” said Kaitlyn Sendejo (10) about why she wanted to help out with the Fall Sweep along with her fellow Halstead Elementary classmates. “I’m proud of my school. I love my school.”

“I really want Copperas Cove to be clean,” said Hayden Hogan (9), also a student at Halstead Elementary School. “I want to help make sure all areas of Cove are clean.”