Contact: Kathy Cates
Phone: (336) 373-2967

National Recreation and Park Association Honors
Greensboro Beautiful with National Voluntary Service Award

GREENSBORO, NC -- (October, 5, 2007) -- The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) recently presented Greensboro Beautiful Inc. (GBI) with a prestigious NRPA National Award for Voluntary Service. Each year, NRPA presents its National Awards to honor excellence and recognize individual and group contributions of recreation and park services across the United States. The award was accepted by Kathy Cates, City Beautiful Director, Elaine Stover, GBI Immediate Past Chair, and Randal Romie, GBI Past Chair, during the 2007 NRPA Congress & Exposition in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

“NRPA award recipients are an inspiration to their profession and to the parks and recreation movement nationwide,” says NRPA Executive Director John Thorner. “We are pleased to recognize these outstanding programs for making such important contributions to their local communities.”  

GBI was nominated by Bonnie Kuester, City of Greensboro's Parks & Recreation Director. “Creating awareness and educating our community about the need to conserve and enhance our environment for our citizens and for future generations doesn’t occur unless we all come together and do something about it,” says Kuester. “Here in Greensboro, we are most fortunate to work together as a community through GBI to make these things happen.”

GBI is a unique private, nonprofit, volunteer organization whose mission for the past 40 years has been “To conserve and enhance the beauty and ecology of our community through public and private cooperation.” 

Working in partnership with the City of Greensboro and its citizens, GBI has sponsored design and construction of three public gardens,  the Greensboro Arboretum, the Bicentennial Garden, and the Bog Garden, and more than 100 landscaped sites on public property throughout the city. 

Special capital campaigns and solicitations are conducted to raise funds for development and enhancement of public gardens, including the organization’s most ambitious project to date, Gateway Gardens, soon to be developed at E. Lee and Florida Streets in Southeast Greensboro. 

GBI also supports Urban Reforestation through annual Community Tree Planting Projects and a Memorial/Honor Tree Program; conducts a Business Landscape Awards Program and recognizes other community appearance efforts at its Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony; provides a tree curriculum for K-5 schools in Guilford County and distributes 5,500 tree seedlings for all third graders each year for Arbor Day; conducts the Clean Campus Program to educate K-12 students about litter prevention and recycling; partners with the Greensboro Parks & Recreation Department to support landscaping projects on major public thoroughfares; collaborates with the NC Cooperative Extension Service to develop horticulture education programs in conjunction with the public gardens; and sponsors the Big Sweep and the Great American Cleanup projects. 

Last year, nearly 3,000 volunteers gave more than 12,000 hours of service to the community; and more than $1.3 million in cash contributions, in-kind goods and services, volunteer hours, and cost avoidance was generated by GBI from the community. Funding for GBI programs (approximately $150,000 annually) is raised locally from contributions from businesses, individuals, civic organizations, sponsorships, and fundraising events. GBI serves the entire population of Greensboro and makes a significant contribution to the quality of life we all enjoy in our community.

For more information on how to support GBI or how to get involved, visit www.greensborobeautiful.org

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