In early February, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful announced that supermarket chain Publix would become the title sponsor of the program.
Publix becoming a title sponsor means big developments for the foundation. Kathleen Gibi, executive director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, explained the program’s progress and what a title sponsor could potentially mean.
“So they’ve committed $15,000 to the program,” Gibi said. “And that’s allowed us to purchase more supplies, increase the quality of those supplies and it gives us more staff support to help have more communications with our ongoing river mile participants.”
Nearly ten years ago, the nonprofit Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful was formed. With the goal of cleaning up and beautifying the Tennessee River, the foundation organizes cleanups and removes large amounts of trash from the river.
As a part of achieving that goal, the foundation came out with the Adopt-A-River Mile program. Similar to many highway adoption programs, individuals, groups, corporations, churches, nonprofits or donors can adopt a mile-long stretch of the river. Adoptees go out on the river and remove trash.
The Tennessee River is 652 miles long, and 238 river miles have been adopted. Gibi stressed that the new title sponsor is an exciting development along with the other adoptees and has much potential to improve the river’s status.
“So far, we’ve had 635 volunteers reported from our cleanups,” Gibi said. “Since 2021, the total number of cleanups organized by our Adopt-A-River Mile participants that has been reported is 60. So far, those volunteers have removed 275,819 pounds of trash.”
The nature of the trash problem in the Tennessee River is that much of it pools together and collects in coves along the river. As Gibi elaborated, the problem of pollution into the river nowadays is largely over, but so-called “legacy litter” persists.
“We see this as the end game,” Gibi said. “Our mission is to educate and inspire others to take action, so if we’re able to get that legacy litter out, the part that’s hard, with a big group, and we’ve got people that are monitoring our river miles. We’re not going to wind up with this problem again. For Publix to really breathe life into the program with this funding, it’s allowed us to increase the number of participants we can serve.”
“A recent study found the Tennessee River to be the most plastic-polluted river in the world that has been studied to date,” Nicole Krauss, media relations manager for Publix, said. “Sustainability is ingrained in the Publix culture and represented in our Mission Statement through valuing our associates… and ensuring economic stewardship for our stockholders.”
Publix prides itself on being able to help improve the Tennessee River as Keep America Beautiful is a unique program.
“Publix is proud to be the first grocery retailer to sponsor Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful,” Krauss said. “Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful is the nation’s first Keep America Beautiful affiliate to focus solely on a river.”
The new sponsor, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and Gibi are encouraged about the progress the foundation will be able to make this year.
Gibi shared a goal of getting half of the river’s miles adopted by the end of this year, amounting to 85 new mile adoptions. The program continues to fight for a cleaner and beautiful Tennessee River.
