Pinckneyville Middle School's Recycling Club Wins Great American Cleanup Prize

In the spring of this year Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful issued a challenge to every community - find a project in your neighborhood that will enhance the community and enter for a chance to win a $500 award. The contest ended May 15 and the winners were just recently announced.

Pinckneyville Middle School took the challenge and was one of seven of 147 groups chosen as winners. The contest was part of the Great American Cleanup, a national community improvement project.

"The results from this years’ Great American Cleanup are in and the results are amazing," said Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful director Connie Wiggins in a statement. "We are on our way to become America’s greenest, cleanest community."

Cash prizes were awarded in seven separate categories which were chosen by a Selection Committee. The numbers of participating groups grew from 40 in 2010 to 147 this year.

There were:

• 201 Events were held in 60 days  - 41 percent more than last year
• 1,172 volunteers participated ( 855 last year)
• 22,166 people participated in efforts to make the community greener and cleaner
• 147 community groups participated (40 last year)
• 9,104 people were educated ( 5,587 last year)
• 3,374 trees were planted (100 last year)
• 1,565,550 pounds of material were recycled
• 146 miles of streets cleaned
• And 5,000 pounds less litter was collected due to our litter prevention education efforts.

This year's Challenge winners were:

• Gwinnett Tech Tree Rangers
• Tucker Woods Homeowner’s Association
• Primerica
• Trilogy Park Homeowner’s Association
• Brookwood Park Subdivision and Gwinnett Station Apartments
• Pinckneyville Middle Schools Recycling Club
• Mill Creek Key Club

Each of these groups received $500 for their efforts.

To enter each group was required to submit a post-project summary form  including five to 10 digital before and after photos.