Atco Cleanup, Named for Ray Southern, Atco Community Day Set for April 20

The upcoming cleanup of the Atco community in Cartersville as part of Earth Day 2013 celebrations will take on a new meaning.

"This year is especially meaningful since [the] city council recently named the event in honor of Ray Southern, who was the longtime city Public Works director, an Atco Baptist Church deacon and an advocate of Keep Bartow Beautiful," KBB Director Sheri Henshaw said in a press release.

Each April, Great American Cleanup events are held nationwide as part of Earth Day celebrations. Atco has been the site of successful Cartersville cleanups in past years, and organizers have expanded the 2013 event to include a community day.

"This year will be the first year for Cartersville that the event will be more than just a cleanup. As a community day, it will be a time for residents of the Atco Mill Village to come together in fellowship," City Planner Richard Osborne told The Daily Tribune News. "Ray Southern, the longtime public works director for Cartersville, really worked hard and passed on a great legacy of promoting Keep Bartow Beautiful and the annual spring cleanups associated with Keep America Beautiful and Earth Day."

Southern died in October after a lengthy battle with cancer.

"Him being a Bartow County native, the longtime public works director, a deacon at Atco Baptist Church, having this event in the Atco Mill Village and naming the event this year in his honor—the Ray Southern Memorial Cleanup—is really a great tribute to this fine man.”

Osborne said he hopes the cleanup grows from the 50 people who participated in 2011 and 75 participants in 2012 to more than "100 people from all over Cartersville." 

Residents are invited to participate in the Ray Southern Memorial Cleanup and Atco Community Day at Atco Baptist Church on Saturday, April 20, beginning at 11 a.m.

As part of the community day, fire detectors will be distributed; blood pressure screenings will be provided; and tree seedlings will be passed out. Various groups will have information tables in the church parking lot.

Cleanup volunteers are appreciated, and advance registration is not needed. Atco Baptist Church will provide lunch to volunteers, registration for whom will be at 11 a.m. in the front parking lot.

All clean-up items will be provided, including gloves, trash bags, safety vests, and water bottles, courtesy of KBB. Volunteers will walk through the neighborhood, as well as along Cassville and Sugar Valley roads, picking up trash.

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