Grant will fund printing of county's litter coloring book

The Pearl River County Board of Supervisors received a grant from the Lower Pearl River Valley Foundation (LPRVF) to support the printing of their youth coloring book aimed at teaching school aged children the importance of refraining from littering. The book was the result of the board searching to find a way to influence children in the county to promote cleanliness and prevent littering through education at a very young age.

District 1 Supervisor Donald Hart said the board was trying to figure how to create a book and was doing some research to see if one existed across the United States. In the meantime, Hart said he had seen his neighbor picking up litter just about everyday when he was leaving home. One day he said stopped and talked to her, Abby Chatelain, and found out that she was an artist. After they had talked, Chatelain agreed to create the book for the county wide effort.

(L-R): Local artist Abby Chatelain, LPRVF President Clyde Dease, and District 1 Superior Donald Hart display the color cover of the litter coloring book (Photo by Carey Meitzler)

Hart said the plan is to have the books printed in time for the coming school year. He explained that he had already been in contact with the three county school systems superintendents and all supported distributing the books in the fall.

Hart had previously approached Clyde Dease with the LPRVF about providing funds through a grant for this project. In presenting the grant award of $5,000.00, Dease said that the LPRVF was extremely excited about this project.

“Over the years, the Lower Pearl River Valley Foundation has funded many different cleanup efforts, but I never felt that we were grabbing a hold of something that would change attitudes. We believe this kind of project is the kind that we begin to change the attitudes and mindset for those people in the county. You may not see those results right now, but three years, five years, ten years down the road, you are going to see the shift and that’s why we believe in this kind of project.”

County Administrator Adrain Lumpkin said the grant from LPRVF will allow the board to have 10,000 copies of the book printed with a color cover page. Lumpkin said that number of copies will be enough to get a copy of the book to every student in the county in the lower grades.