As drivers make their way through the city on the morning of Friday, April 21, chances are they’ll see some roadside crews picking up trash. It’s all part of the Community Cleanup event, scheduled to coincide with NC DOT’s spring Litter Sweep and Earth Day.

City Manager Terrell Blackmon invites business owners, employees and other individuals to join in the larger community cleanup event when they reach their morning destinations, whether it’s their road front footage once they get to work or back in their neighborhoods after dropping the kids at school.

Crews from the city will be joined by business people, school groups and others beginning at 8 a.m. next Friday, strategically scheduled to coincide with the statewide cleanup effort, Blackmon explained.

Blackmon was a guest on TownTalk and spoke about the upcoming cleanup effort as well as several items presented to the City Council during the Monday evening meeting, including recommendations from the Public Safety Committee, which met April 5 to discuss several topics, including using opioid settlement funds, construction of a communications tower and grant funding to reduce gun violence.

Community Cleanup Event

The cleanup effort does more than simply get trash off the street, Blackmon said.

It checks off a box of one of the city’s strategic goals, for one. “We want to improve the image and perception of our city,” Blackmon said.

The cleanup also builds community among its businesses and residents who are “working together to make our community a more aesthetically pleasing community,” he said.

Groups will be venturing out into the West End area this time, and Blackmon said any individual or group is welcome to participate “to just clean up in your neighborhood or in front of your business,” he said.

The middle and high schools will be participating, as well as several elementary schools.

The decision was made to move the cleanup event from Saturday to Friday to give more business people a chance to participate, but also to provide a “visual” for weekly commuters.
“What an impact it could be, doing it on Friday during rush hour,” Blackmon said.

Visit henderson.nc.gov for details of the cleanup event or contact City Clerk Tracey Kimbrell at 252-430-5705 or traceykimbrell@henderson.nc.gov.

City Council action

Three items on the consent agenda included information from the Public Safety Committee, and Blackmon said all three were approved at the April 10 meeting.

• The city will participate in the second-wave allocation from the multi-billion-dollar opioid settlement. Henderson is one of just a few municipalities that applied for, and received, funding. North Carolina will divvy up the second allocation of about $600 million, and Henderson will get another $166,000 over a multi-year period aimed at reducing the opioid epidemic.
• The city also approved working with N.C. Central University to request a grant from the Homeland Security’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant to focus on reducing gun violence, which the City Council identified as a public health crisis in 2022. A group of community representatives studying gun violence supports a variety of awareness and prevention activities in schools and other places to educate youth and the community as a whole.
• The city approved a $3 million grant application through U.S. Rep. Don Davis to install a communications tower behind the North Henderson ballparks. If selected, the city will partner with Vance County to come up with a 25 percent match for the project, or about $375,000 each. The proposed location would provide close to a 100-mile radius coverage area, which local law enforcement and first responders sorely need to have effective, reliable communication when responding to emergencies. The project could be completed as early as 2024.

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