All Residents Rise in Empowered Communities

Making a community beautiful for all residents can be more than just cleaning up litter or illegal dumping.  As our 2020, “The Cost Of Litter & Illegal Dumping In Pennsylvania Study Of Nine Cities across The Commonwealth”, found these cities spend $54.5 million, or 80% of these costs, on cleaning up litter and illegally dumped trash.  What if we could help prevent it in the first place?

After a spot is cleaned from the litter and trash, the goal is to keep it that way.  One of the best ways to keep an area looking nice is to beautify it.  When our community’s outdoor spaces’ are made more welcoming to residents, they become less attractive to litter and dumping. A win for everyone!

Project don’t have to be huge and can take many forms and depends on the area.  Improving an area doesn’t have to be expensive either!  And you don’t have to do it alone.  Area business chambers, schools, legislator’s offices, churches, and businesses are often happy to partner on projects that benefit the area.

Some ideas can be:

• Reclaiming a vacant lot as a community garden,
• Repainting the exterior of a historic church,
• Making a playground more cheerful for children with a colorful mural and new equipment for a ball field,
• Planting native trees and shrubs along a stream to help both with flooding and give wildlife a better habitat,
• Removing graffiti and installing flower boxes to improve the look of a concrete road overpass,
• And many, many more.

Program participants have done amazing work in 2025! Here are the 2025 Pick Up Pennsylvania stats:

• 5,255 Events
• 81,500 Invaluable Volunteers
• 6,146,135 Pounds of Materials Recycled
• 4,073,400 Pounds of Trash Disposed
• 7,104 Miles of Roads, Shorelines and Trails Cleaned
• 62,731 Trees, Shrubs, and Flowers Planted
• 35,369 Tires Properly Disposed

Stay tuned for 2026 results. We will tally them at the end of 2026.