KOB is Recognized with a Second Year of Membership in Keep America Beautiful's President’s Circle

For the second year in a row, Keep Oakland Beautiful has earned membership in Keep America Beautiful's President’s Circle. In qualifying for the President’s Circle Award, Keep Oakland Beautiful has met Keep America Beautiful’s high standards of merit by administering initiatives to end littering, improve recycling, and beautify Oakland's communities. 

Highlights of Our Work from 2019
Thanks to our community, we have helped fund impactful programs throughout Oakland. Here is a sampling of some of the work done in 2019.
 
Jingletown Drain Painting
Using a grant from KOB, volunteers painted murals around two drains to bring awareness to the drains while beautifying the neighborhood. The first mural, Estuary Fish, was painted by 50 eighth-graders from Lazear Charter Academy. ​The second mural, Community Quilt, was designed in collaboration with a local senior quilt maker and painted by neighborhood volunteers during an MLK service day.

Myrtle St. Bulb Out Mural and Beautification
​As part of the opening of a new Community Foods Market in West Oakland, the city installed a bulb-out at the NW corner of San Pablo Ave and Myrtle St. to slow vehicles at the intersection. Using a KOB grant, volunteers painted a mural to draw attention to the intersection and increase its impact.

Hoover Durant St Corner Library Pop-Up
A KOB small grant supported the construction of mobile book storage wagons as part of the Hoover Durant Street Corner Library Events. The events are a temporary, yet on-going part of a much larger ongoing campaign to bring back a public neighborhood branch library that was demolished for the construction of a freeway in the early 1970s. 

Champion Transit Plaza Landscape Renovation
​Champion Transit Plaza was built in 2013 by the City of Oakland. Volunteers with the Dimond Improvement Association (DIA) have been maintaining the plaza for five years but the plantings were in need of renovation. DIA used a grant from KOB to replant with more drought-tolerant plants. 

Longfellow Garden Boxes
The Longfellow Neighborhood Association used a KOB grant to beautify the sidewalk in front of an auto body shop on one of the busiest corridors in the neighborhood. Volunteers built raised planters between the chain-link fence and sidewalk and planted drought-tolerant plants. In the future, the neighborhood association would like to build mini-gardens at 5 additional autobody sites along MLK and West MacArthur.

Hoover Elementary Garden
In partnership with the Permaculture Action Network, Burners Without Borders, and Common Vision, the neighborhood hosted a day of hands-on projects and workshops. Nearly 400 volunteers cleared garden spaces and created community agreements about interest, participation and crop choices. 

Longfellow Mosaic Trash Cans
The Longfellow neighborhood is in the process of installing five new mosaic garbage cans on 40th Street at the corners of Market Street, West Street, and MLK Jr Way—the busiest corridors in the neighborhood, primarily at bus stops​.

Universal Garden of Love
The Universal Garden of Love will support residents of Lion Creek Crossings (LCC) to share foods they have grown at LCC by hosting monthly clean ups and pot lucks at the public park. The project will provide four residents at LCC with planter beds to place in a small area near the park or on resident patios.

The President's Circle is the highest award given by the Keep America Beautiful. You can learn more about the work that helped us earn this membership here:

• Small Grants program
• Daffodil Days
• Youth Advisory Committee
• Great American Cleanup

We are honored to be a member of KAB and look forward to continuing our work in serving Oakland's communities.