Christmas Volunteers NEEDED

Volunteers are needed to represent Adopt-A-Block in this year’s Candle Light Parade. The society is looking for volunteers to come out and wear their yellow vests and Santa hats. Together we will walk carrying Adopt-A-Block banners to spread awareness and holiday cheer. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you are not a registered volunteer and wish to participate in the event, we will happily dress you in our fashionable yellow vest. All interested volunteers are asked to call Adopt-A-Block to RSVP and for the event details.

2011 Youth Video Contest

GRAND PRIZE $500

To create awareness about litter in the environment and to engage youth to participate in positive environmental action including litter control, Mission Adopt-A-Block is challenging youth to participate in a videowebcast contest in 2011. The contest is an opportunity for youth to reach out to their peers and to influence them in taking care of the environment by offering a message of hope and environmental stewardship.

Youth are asked to submit a video a minimum of 20 seconds to no more than three minutes, depicting a message about how we can all contribute to creating a litter free environment and why this is important. Following the contest deadline, March 15, submissions will be posted on YOUTUBE for a community judging period of a month. During this time, youth will be encouraged to market their video to gain voting support. Top scoring videos by community votes will then be judged by a judges committee who will select the winning entries based on originality, creativity, content, clarity, quality, and adherence to contest rules. The top three videos will be posted on Adopt-A-Block’s website.

The Adopt-A-Block 2011 video–webcast challenge has gained the support of several Mission businesses who have donated prizes in-kind for several great prize packages which will be awarded in April. These businesses include Fraser Valley Building Supplies, Save-On- Foods, Grabba Java, Embers, Mackie Naturals, Brighton Beach Salon, Tim Hortons, Boston Pizza, Fraser River Safari, The Great Escape, Sue’s Copy and the District of Mission Parks & Recreation.

All information about the contest including entrant forms, official contest rules and all necessary releases, can be obtained from the Adopt-A-Block website or by contacting the coordinator. Paper copies can also be picked up at Sue’s Copy in Mission by request. Adopt-A-Block looks forward to seeing the creativity and ingenuity of Mission’s youth and hopes that this competition will empower youth to be proactive in their roles as ecological citizens.

Another Successful Annual Fall Community Litter Clean-Up

Hatzic Secondary Students participate in this year's Fall Clean-Up.

Communities in Bloom collect litter in the industrial area, London Ave. and surrounding streets during this year's Fall Clean-Up.

Mission Adopt-A-Block would like to thank all the volunteers who participated in this year's succesful Fall Community Litter Clean-Up event. This year, a total of 1325 kg of litter was collected from the environment and properly disposed of. The litter consisted of 990kg garbage litter and 335 kg of scrap metal, not including recyclables collected including paper, cans, plastics and aluminum cans. Thanks to all those that joined Adopt-A-Block for this significant community event and for contributing to a cleaner, healthier, and beautiful environment for all to enjoy. See you next spring!

Mission Adopt-A-Block Takes it to the Streams

Local volunteers joined Mission Adopt-A-Block on Saturday, September 25, 2010 and helped remove garbage, including an old car seat, metal scraps, and assorted trash from D'Herbomez stream. Adopt-A-Block volunteers as well as those from S.A.I.N.T.S and Mission Rotary attended the event, greeted by the Tim Horton’s cruiser with fresh donuts and coffee to start the day.

Adopt-A-Block organized their new stream clean-up initiative to address rising concerns about the litter in the environment, in particular, sensitive aquatic habitats. All litter eventually reaches our waterways, by wind or water, and this is where litter has the most detrimental impact on our environment. Thanks to a grant from Van City, Adopt-A-Block was able to purchase the equipment needed to organize the clean-up including purchasing hip waders, garbage bags, gloves and funding the services of a truck and driver to haul the bagged litter.

Volunteer efforts in the large community stream clean-up and surrounding green space area benefit the community in numerous ways. Volunteer efforts help to raise awareness about the detriments of litter in the environment as well as show an example of stewardship in the environment that others may follow. The clean-up also helped to reduce the amount of litter to cause distress to wildlife in the area, and all litter collected was properly disposed of. As litter begets litter, this also means less litter tossed in the natural environment. Thanks to all those that joined Adopt-A-Block for this significant community event and for contributing to a cleaner, healthier, and beautiful environment for all to enjoy.

Volunteer Meet & Greet

Join us for a Volunteer & Friends, Meet & Greet on September 25th from 830am-930am in Heritage Park (under the picnic shelter). Tim Horton's cruiser will be on the scene with fresh donuts and coffee. Learn about Adopt-A-Block's new stream clean-up initiative and precautions and guidelines when undertaking a stream clean-up. SAINTS and ROTARY will be conducting a stream-clean-up from 930am-1130am. All other volunteers joining us for the event, are encourage to clean other areas of the park. For more information call 604-826-9423 or email missionadoptablock@gmail.com

Hope Spring -ing into Action!

If you see yellow on the horizon, it’s probably Adopt-A-Block’s spring litter clean-up volunteers busy at work. Eight Mission non-profit groups will be participating in large community litter clean-ups in April and May for the remuneration of $250. Benefits of participating in a spring clean-up reach far beyond the financial award. By participating in community litter clean-ups volunteers help to spread awareness, show civic pride and demonstrate environmental responsibility. Volunteer efforts in large community clean-ups help to protect our children and animals from otherwise harmful litter encounters and litter collection adds to the aesthetic appearance of the community. This spring several heavily littered areas in Mission are targeted for clean-ups including Keystone, Tyler, London, Rai Ave., Cedar St. and more. So if you spot someone wearing an Adopt-A-Block yellow vest this spring, make sure you give them a friendly wave or say thank-you to let them know their volunteer litter control effort is appreciated.

Hope from Volunteers Moving Mountains

Adopt-A-Block volunteers are moving mountains, of litter that is. Litter is an on-going environmental problem and sometimes it may seem that for every bag of litter an Adopt-A-Block volunteer collects, there are two waiting for them the next day. It can be disheartening to see litter returned to a route that was just cleaned. And sometimes volunteers may feel that they are the only ones out there cleaning the mess, while many neighbors and community members are putting it there. While it may seem that there is no end in sight to the litter problem, there is a significant amount of work being done by Adopt-A-Block volunteers to greatly reduce it. In a recently 2010 survey, Adopt-A-Block asked their volunteers, “On average how much litter do you collect each month?” 59 Adopt-A-Block volunteers [out of 183 surveyed] reported to collect approximately 57 [114 AAB blue nylon bags] garbage bags of litter each month, totaling 684 garbage bags each year.


The amount of litter and time spent on adopted routes differ from person to person; yet, pulling in the numbers all together makes for a significant amount of litter no longer an eyesore in the community and no longer degrading the environment, such as entering into our waterways and disrupting aquatic habitats.

683 garbage bags of litter, however, seems like a whole lot of trash! While on one hand, this number of bags is impressive to report having been cleaned up by a small number of volunteers — it is on the other hand, a tremendous amount of litter to enter the environment in the first place. Considering that the average household puts out only one bag of garbage on the curb each week, making for 48 bags a year– 683 bags of litter accounts for a large amount of litterbugs in our community. This reveals the need to increase awareness to the problems of litter in the environment and the need for many to practice ecological citizenship. How do we reach the unconverted? It starts with being an example—working from your corner. Adopt-A-block would like to thank all their hard working volunteers for being an example to others in the community—demonstrating that litter is everyone’s responsibility and that we can all ‘pitch-in’ and make a difference towards the health and beauty of our environment.

Typical litter collected by volunteers on their adopted routes. [Picture taken by AAB Coordinator 2008].