Project Front Yard is holding its inaugural GR8 Acadiana Cleanup, an eight-day community “Festival of Service” that will focus on projects that improve the built environment, enhance our social fabric, provide environmental education, encourage volunteerism and promote business engagement.
The Festival of Service kicked off over the weekend and continues through Saturday, April 8 in coordination with local and regional partners and service organizations including Acadian Native Plant Project, Destiny of Faith Church, Eco Cajun, Lafayette Consolidated Government’s (LCG) Planning Division and Environmental Quality Division, McComb-Veazey Neighborhood Coterie, No Waste Louisiana, Project Front Yard – St. Martin Parish, Scenic Lafayette and the Urban Naturalist.
Project Front Yard will work with these organizations to coordinate daily service projects that can be performed by individuals, businesses and groups alike. There are multiple ways that citizens can participate:
Monday, April 3: Illegal Sign Day – Scenic Lafayette will lead a series of educational videos about illegal signs in the public right-of-way with Councilman Bruce Conque and Councilwoman Liz Hebert. They will encourage the public to remove any illegal signs from the public right-of-way to promote a clean and beautiful community. Signs picked up from this day will be used on Friday, April 7 for a public art project. Tuesday,
April 4: Planting Day – Acadiana Food Alliance will work with a local partner on a Fruit Tree Planting Flash Mob. Location to be announced. Marcus Descant, the Urban Naturalist, will also host “In Bloom,” a hanging basket workshop that will focus on edible flowers, flowering herbs and pollinator plants.
Wednesday, April 5: Waste Free Day – Eco Cajun creator Caitlin Sonnier will offer a series of educational videos on how to shop and prepare a waste free lunch. Project Front Yard along with Eco Cajun, LCG CAO Lowell Duhon and other community members will offer tips on how to have a waste free lunch at work via a Facebook Live video!
Thursday, April 6: Beautification Day – LCG’s Recycling Division will highlight current and new “Embrace A Space” participants and ask other organizations and businesses to participate. Businesses can also sign up to become Project Front Yard partners.
Friday, April 7: Public Art Day (Cultural Assets Day) - Recognizing that Lafayette has so many cultural assets, Project Front Yard will highlight projects already completed and work with UL art students to create a public art project from the illegal signs collected by Scenic Lafayette.
**Saturday, April 8: Built Environment Day –**The Festival of Service will culminate with “Simcoe Live,” a Better Block event hosted by the McComb-Veazey Neighborhood Coterie on Simcoe Street from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
The Festival of Service is a “GR8” community spring cleaning event that coincides with Keep America Beautiful’s “Great American Cleanup”. Entering its 19th year, Keep America Beautiful’s Great American Cleanup is the nation’s largest community improvement program with an estimated 50,000 events occurring from spring through fall in more than 20,000 communities across the country.
The “GR8 Acadiana Cleanup” also culminates in preparation for the annual Cleanest City contest, which will take place on Tuesday, April 11. The Cleanest City contest is an annual competition hosted by the Louisiana Garden Club Federation that aims to instill civic pride in individual citizens and thus improve the appearance of towns and cities.
All details for the Project Front Yard’s Festival of Service can be found at projectfrontyard.com. Individuals, groups or organizations interested in signing up for Festival of Service events, can visit the Project Front Yard Facebook page.