May 10, 2025

 

       

Announcements:
Maggie Callaway reminded everyone about her graduation party on May 10 at 3 pm at Kathy Eaton’s house. Linda Telaak said the contribution for La Plata School had been mailed along with a cover letter. Art announced Bob Whitaker will be our speaker for next week. Maggie is playing phone tag with Millie’s Assisted Living about doing a project with them, but will let the club know when she has something firmed up—perhaps joining them in bingo. Maggie asked Art if he would send out an email about trash pickup with Toss no Mas on May 17. Jim Callender said we need to decide about the median we sponsor. It is now costing us over $100 a month to have this done. Jim asked if we want to do this anymore. After discussion, Art made a motion that we discontinue sponsoring this median; Mark Richard seconded. Motion passed.

 

Art introduced Alicia Hallmark of Gila Resources Information Project (GRIP) to speak about the Toss no Mas program. This program was founded by Mayor Ken Ladner. Seeing litter around Silver City, he wanted to find solutions and started reaching out to local non-profits 

including GRIP. GRIP has obtained funding for the materials used for trash pickup, but the effort to pickup the trash is all volunteer based. Their goal is fairly simple, to make Silver City cleaner and more beautiful. They started in 2021 and what they do is host monthly cleanup events.
However, they will host other event dates. They connect with local businesses with their business pledge activity, and this year they will have two interns from the state who will be doing civic service projects through their school to start cleaning clubs in the schools. Alicia highlighted various groups that do regular cleanup throughout the City. Their main funding comes from a Clean and Beautiful grant from the NM Department of Tourism. Other
participants are the Department of Highways and the Department of Sanitation. Silver City also provides some funding. They also work in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and
Silver City Main Street. In the US $11.5 billion is spent annually on litter cleanup. Litter can decrease property values by 7 percent; tourism revenue can be decreased by 39 percent. Dirty
businesses can also decrease money for that business so it can affect the economy. Plastic products are still creating problems because of the time it takes for them to decompose, if left
out in the environment can be breeding grounds for bacteria and pests. Litter is a community problem. About 45 percent is purposely dropped, but the rest is accidental like dropping out of your pocket, blowing out of a truck, etc. They are working with
businesses that might have broken dumpster bins that let trash blow out. When litter hits our streets, it is our problem affecting our economy and our health. The program's awesome volunteers are stepping up even though they weren’t the litterers. They are trying to communicate how to properly use trash disposal.
They have had 970 volunteers participate in cleanups since 2021 working 3 hours on a Saturday, once a month, 10 times a year. Since they started, volunteers have picked up over 15 tons of trash around Silver City. All supplies are furnished by Toss no Mas, even donuts. Alicia then had several points about how Rotary can help: by picking up trash on May 17 highlighting how much Rotary cares; they are trying to have a featured volunteer each month
—put their name on a flyer, put information about the club in their press release and in their thank-you follow-up. Seeing volunteers picking up trash gives good positive role models for younger people, who are shown by studies to be some of the worst litterers. They are trying to institute a business pledge program to get businesses to clean around their locations. Toss no Mas will furnish the supplies and work with them on getting broken
dumpsters repaired or broken enclosures around them repaired. Volunteers are also directed to the business pledge partners on Saturday cleanups. They also have an adopt-a-roadway and
adopt-a-waterway option as part of the program. Alicia then listed contact information for Toss no Mas.

After a question and answer period, Art adjourned the meeting.