Springfield City Councilman and President of Keep Springfield Beautiful Melvin Edwards joined AIC’s Communication Research class recently to speak to students about the local non-profit organization.

Edwards paid the visit to AIC courtesy of Professor Carol DeCarlo, who teaches the class.

Keep Springfield Beautiful is a Western Massachusetts premier, nonprofit organization aimed at highlighting the need to make litter and graffiti history, and to promote recycling and the care keeping of Springfield.

Edwards explained that KSB’s mission is to engage all sectors of the community in the creation and promotion to fight for the beautification of Springfield.

Since the affiliation took off in 2007, KSB’s Citywide Cleanup has since then recruited almost 8,000 volunteers; removed 1 million pounds of trash and debris from city streets, playgrounds, waterways and has recycled 200,000 pounds of tires, electronics and metals.

“We wanted to be an organization to be a serve the entirety of the city. We do recognize the certain neighborhoods that need more services than the others,” Edwards said to the class.

KSB has actively divided the city into four separate quadrants that require cleaning and up to date maintenance. Students, residents, and every day people have been recruited to volunteer a couple hours once a week to assist in making Springfield a more enticing and welcoming community.

“We understand that with Keep Springfield Beautiful there is an importance in what the investors do. If you are one of the people who go out there and do some of the cleaning in your neighborhood, you’re not going to be one of the people to contribute to future problems,” said Edwards.

But asking people to “clean and go green” hasn’t been as easy as Edwards had imagined, though it is an engaging effort that has also been rewarding.

“When I was finally able to make a connection with people, and explain to them how their pocket book is going to affected by trash, liter, graffiti, that’s when I started to resonate more and I started getting better responses,” he said.

Urban blight is a disastrous hub that has taken over much of the urban cities in and around Western Massachusetts. Litter, trash, graffiti, the result of it all is it reduces the city’s tax base by discouraging homebuyers.

DeCarlo has lived through the downside.

“I had a beautiful home in  Springfield’s South End/Maple High area neighborhood, but trying to sell it, in that area that I lived in was a struggle,” said DeCarlo.

Not only has KSB remained focused on keeping the grounds beautiful, but also the care in keeping our environment clean has promoted a sense of well being from the quality of our public schools to the safety of our streets, Edwards told the class.

“Those neighborhoods that are clean, with nice cut lawns, not a lot of litter, not a lot of trash, those are the areas that would require less social services, less police intervention,” he said.

Keep Springfield Beautiful is an environmental organization, but as Edwards has encouraged, there is a connection between public health, and the public’s responsibility in keeping the area we live in clean.

“There is a false connection between people being poor and people being dirty,” said Edwards.

DeCarlo has assigned her class to connect with Edwards and his organization Keep Springfield Beautiful, encouraging her students to keep in mind, “good communication is the efficient delivery of the right message to the right audience.” Previously Communication Research has studied the professional efforts with The Springfield Falcons, AHL hockey team, Jesse Lederman a candidate for the Springfield City Council, and now Keep Springfield Beautiful.

“Keep Springfield Beautiful is important because, it’s how we treat the rest of us in our society and those who don’t have the voice who are not articulate, who do not know how to have computer skills and media knowledge, that’s where you guys come in, you are the kind of people who can be their voice,” concluded Edwards.