‘Don’t Litter Lincoln’

Lincoln Parish is hoping to kick off a new anti-litter awareness campaign by participating in Louisiana’s Love the Boot cleanup week on a broader scale than ever before.

The Lincoln Parish Police Jury and Sheriff’s Office are teaming up with Louisiana Tech University and Grambling State University to coordinate parishwide litter pickup events on April 20.

And the jury hopes this widescale effort will send the message that Lincoln Parish is getting serious about litter.

“It’s probably the biggest parishwide anti-litter event Lincoln Parish has ever seen,” Parish Administrator Courtney Hall said. “And I think we need to ride that momentum into the future.”

Individual litter crews are already being formed in Ruston, Grambling, Choudrant, Simsboro and Dubach. The jury will supply the crews with equipment, and the sheriff’s office will provide roadway escorts where needed.

Residents interested in participating can go to lincolnparish.org and click on the Love the Boot banner at the top of the web page to find a map of pickup crews in the area and sign up, or they can create their own. As of Wednesday about a dozen different crew registries had been created in the parish.

This year the newly elected police jury has meet several times to discuss litter enforcement and awareness.

In the midst of those efforts, this month the administration has begun launching an awareness campaign, thus far featuring a new “Don’t Litter Lincoln” logo and a social media promotional video for the Love the Boot event.

The event falls on the same day as Louisiana Tech’s Big Event, in which hundreds of Tech students volunteer to help elderly community members with yard work and other needs.

But the number of students that volunteer - Tech’s expecting 1,800 to 2,000 this year - often outweighs the need. So this year about 500 students will instead join up with Love the Boot volunteers from the parish and join in on the cleanup.

“Louisiana Tech wouldn’t be Louisiana Tech without Lincoln Parish and the Ruston community,” said Connor Smith, president of Tech’s Student Government Association. “We want to give back to them because they’re always in support of us.”

Representatives of the jury, Tech and GSU recently met to align their efforts and participate in the statewide Love the Boot event in a way not before seen in Lincoln Parish.

Tech Vice President of Student Advancement Dickie Crawford said the partnership is a great opportunity for Tech to better utilize the participation Big Event draws without losing that event’s primary focus of serving the community’s elderly.

“And the benefit is these students will be working alongside people in the community, getting to meet people in the parish and city,” Crawford said. “So the community gets to see and appreciate the value of our students and vice versa.”

Meanwhile, Grambling State has been an affiliate of Keep Louisiana Beautiful, the organization behind Love the Boot, since 2022.

The university partners with the city of Grambling, Grow Grambling and the Grambling Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. to put on Love the Boot cleanup activities across the campus and city.

“We are excited to continue our efforts to keep our state, city and campus beautiful,” said Michelle Hopwood, GSU’s Office for Civil Rights and Title IX coordinator, who’s heading up the university’s Love the Boot event.

There are currently three pickup crews available for registration in Grambling on the Love the Boot website.

Grambling SGA President Alexa Johnson said the 2022 Love the Boot cleanup was the first event she participated in after joining the university’s Delta Sigma Theta chapter.

“It was such a great experience that brought the community together for service above ourselves,” Johnson said. “It is quite special and has helped me see how wonderful the Grambling and Ruston community is and how easy it is to impact change.”

The police jury is hoping this event will not only provide temporary relief from littered roadways across the parish, but also inspire more community engagement that will help keep those roadways clean.

Several jurors said they’re recruiting in their own communities, and residents are welcome to call their district’s juror to get involved.