Keep Warner Robins Beautiful celebrates 2018-19 year

Keep Warner Robins Beautiful held its annual volunteer recognition and awards banquet Wednesday. Each year, the organization recognizes businesses, schools, community partnerships and residents who help contribute in making the environment of Warner Robins clean and beautiful. Executive director Debra Jones shared what the organization accomplished over the past year.

“Our mission is to educate the public and promote interest in the improvement of the environment in Warner Robins,” Jones said. “During our year, 2018-2019, we made over 15 demonstrations to more than 100 students. There were 49 news articles published. We had 50 projects that included adopt-a-highway, park and road participants. Keep Warner Robins Beautiful is also proud to salute our 4,140 volunteers for contributing 8,400 hours. We cannot thank you all enough.”

Keep Warner Robins Beautiful board members then presented the city a gift that represented the amount of contributions collected from volunteers and the value of their hours: $1,478,474.75. Warner Robins Mayor Randy Toms accepted on behalf of the city.

“This is one of the most humbling events of the year that I come to,” Toms said. “Each and every one who has been a part of this great organization truly inspire me. I thank you all for your tremendous hard work.”

The Keep Warner Robins Beautiful board of directors then presented business awards of merit, community impact awards, education partnerships, community partnerships, certificates of appreciation and media awards of merit. Also, this year’s Commissioner of the Year award was presented to immediate past-chairwoman Sandra Bracy, Business of the Year Zaxby’s at 505 Booth Rd., and Home of the Year to Charles Horne and his family.

Incoming chairman of the Keep Warner Robins Beautiful board of directors, Roman Jones, presented outgoing chairwoman Sandra Bracy a plaque in appreciation for her leadership.

“I would like to thank all the volunteers because without you all this would not be a success,” Bracy said. “As you’ve heard, for the year, we had more than 4,000 volunteers who contributed over 8,400 hours of service and who also donated goods and in-kind contributions totaling almost $1.5 million dollars. We certainly cannot thank our executive director, Debra Jones, enough for all of her hard work. I’d also like to thank [the] mayor and the Warner Robins Council for their support as well. We are looking forward to another great year.”

“Thank you all for the confidence you have placed in our board and me to serve as chairman,” Jones said. “As 2019 comes to an end and we look into 2020 for many more opportunities to continue to make Warner Robins a thriving beautiful city to live, work, and play.”