In today's episode, Chief Building Official Cody Gunn explains how you can get involved with your community by coming together on Earth Day for the annual Perry Trash Dash!
This City-wide event is designed to support community engagement and promote clean and vibrant neighborhoods.
(1:13) The Trash Dash. What Is It? (1:42) Volunteers, T-Shirts, Donuts, And Coffee (1:57) How To Register (2:14) A Tie-Dye Party! (2:37) Individuals VS. Groups (2:53) A Great Way To Get Volunteer Hours (3:15) What To Expect (3:34) The Trash Dash And The Code Compliance Mission (4:09) The Importance Of Keeping Our City Clean (4:32) Show Up, Pick Up Trash, And Have Some Fun (5:32) Quick Info For This Year's Trash Dash
In today's episode, Chief Building Official Cody Gunn explains how you can get involved with your community by coming together on Earth Day for the annual Perry Trash Dash!
This City-wide event is designed to support community engagement and promote clean and vibrant neighborhoods.
(1:13) The Trash Dash. What Is It? (1:42) Volunteers, T-Shirts, Donuts, And Coffee (1:57) How To Register (2:14) A Tie-Dye Party! (2:37) Individuals VS. Groups (2:53) A Great Way To Get Volunteer Hours (3:15) What To Expect (3:34) The Trash Dash And The Code Compliance Mission (4:09) The Importance Of Keeping Our City Clean (4:32) Show Up, Pick Up Trash, And Have Some Fun (5:32) Quick Info For This Year's Trash Dash
We hope to see you around in our amazing community...Where Georgia Comes Together.
Cody Gunn:
We get together once a year, take care of, you know, some of the main streets that might be problem, get a bunch of volunteers come out, we do some t-shirts, some donuts in the morning and some coffee, and just have a good time.
Tabitha Clark:
Oh, donuts and coffee. That's worth it all together.
Cody Gunn:
Yes. That's what you need. Get people to come out in the morning, is coffee.
Tabitha Clark:
Coffee and donuts. I love it. I love it. Welcome to the Inside Perry Podcast, where you get an inside look at Perry Georgia's local government. We're glad you chose Perry, where people make the difference. Whether you stay a few hours or a lifetime, your time in Perry will be rewarding and unforgettable. I'm Tabitha Clark, communications manager for the City of Perry. In today's episode, we talk about the upcoming annual Perry Trash Dash with members of Perry's Code Compliance Team . Thank you for joining the Inside Perry podcast. Today we are talking about the annual trash dash that our code compliance team puts on every year, and I have the pleasure of sitting down with our chief building official Cody Gunn. So Cody, welcome to the Inside Perry Podcast.
Cody Gunn:
Thank you, Tabitha . I'm excited to be here.
Tabitha Clark:
Awesome. So let's talk about the trash dash. What exactly are we talking about?
Cody Gunn:
Basically the trash dash is our opportunity to get volunteers to come and clean up their community. Obviously we do a pretty good job as a community taking care of our trash, but there's litter that comes out and it gets on the main roads and it, you know, it can make Perry not look as beautiful as it is or how we'd like it to look. So we get together once a year, take care of, you know, some of the main streets. That might be problem streets, get a bunch of volunteers come out, we do some t-shirt s. some donuts in the morning and some coffee and just have a good time.
Tabitha Clark:
Oh, donuts and coffee. That's worth it all together.
Cody Gunn:
Yes, that's what you need. The people come out in the morning is coffee.
Tabitha Clark:
Coffee and donuts. I love it. So the trash dash this year is on April 22nd. They need to register first.
Cody Gunn:
Yes, we have the registration online. You can see it on all our wonderful social media things. Or you can just go in to the City of Perry website and put in trhe search bar the trash dash. It'll get you signed up. It'll ask your t-shirt size. This year the t-shirt will be white with the trash dash symbol on it so that we can tie dye it at the end. This is, oh fun, an ode to it being Earth day. I like it. And tie dye is very earthy, so that's what we're going for. I think so. Yep. Yeah, so we'll be doing tie dye at the end from 12 to one. So once you're done getting all the trash cleaned up in our city, you can do some tie dye and hang out with all the other volunteers and call it a day.
Tabitha Clark:
When people register, do they register individually? Can they do teams? How's that working?
Cody Gunn:
You could do it both ways. If it's just you, absolutely. We'd love to have you. But if you're in a large group, which is typically more of what we see, we have different church groups and scout troops, things like that, that'd like to do it. It's a good way to get hours for sure, for volunteer hours. Mm-hmm., I know a lot of high schools, seniors and juniors are trying to get volunteer hours, so this is a good way so you can sign up as groups so that you guys all be together. We can tell you where to go cause we have some areas that we'd like to see our groups heading out to. Or if there's an area or your neighborhood that you want to clean up, you can come get all the supplies from us and go right back to your neighborhood and clean it up.
Tabitha Clark:
So this signup is free, so you get free coffee and donuts. You get to beautify your city and then you get to tie-dye.
Cody Gunn:
Yep. We'll have council members there, so it's a good opportunity if you wanna talk to them. Ask them any questions and it's a good opportunity to meet other people in the community who are, you know, similarly want to keep Perry beautiful.
Tabitha Clark:
So, this trash dash, how does it fit in with the overall code compliance mission in the City of Perry?
Cody Gunn:
So, there's a couple things that it does. There's one piece that's important for all Georgia cities is the stormwater. Portion. Mm-hmm., which we do have to have an event that has stormwater education, so there will be some education, but essentially, you know, all the rain we've been having that washes the trash into the drains and eventually gets out to the rivers. So we do wanna keep that from happening and we can do a lot of good with the amount of volunteers that we have and keeping a lot of that out of the rivers and streams around.
Tabitha Clark:
Yeah. A lot of people don't realize how the trash that is here locally eventually, if it's not picked up, it ends up in the ocean in our lakes.
Cody Gunn:
Yep. It is. It is tough and it's something that we can do something about fairly easily. Even the couple hours that you'll be cleaning out trash with the amount of people that we have and the amount of effort that people put in, you know, we can, we can take care of a lot of it.
Tabitha Clark:
Will we be providing the participants with anything to help them pick up trash?
Cody Gunn:
Yep. We will give them the m the picker-upper grabby things. I on't know what the technical term is for that.
Tabitha Clark:
I think that's technical.
Cody Gunn:
Yeah, the grabbers. Uh, so you guys don't have to get anything on your hands. We'll have gloves. We'll have vests. So if you're on a busier street, we'd like you to wear vests. We will provide those. And we also have all the trash bags and we'll have staff driving around picking up those bags if they start to get heavy. We have some people who really dig in and take care of a lot of trash in a short amount of time and, and they put a lot of effort into it.
Tabitha Clark:
Basically we just give you all the materials. You just have to show up, pick up some trash, and have some fun, right?
Cody Gunn:
Absolutely. And we thank everybody who came out last year. We encourage you to come out again, and if you know anybody. You came last year. You know, any groups looking to get involved, it's a great opportunity and we look forward to seeing you.
Tabitha Clark:
Wonderful. Well, thanks for joining me, Cody.
Cody Gunn:
Thank you.
Tabitha Clark:
This year's Trash Dash with our code compliance department is going to be on April 22nd. You'll need to register before then. You can register, find links on our social media page, as well as our website at perry-ga.gov , and then show up on April the 22nd between nine and 10 at the Perry Event Center. And get ready to beautify your city and actually make a difference. You can learn more about the Perry's Code Compliance Department by visiting our website at perry-ga.gov.. Thanks for listening to Inside Perry, your inside look at Perry Georgia's local government. Take a look at the show notes for more information about today's episode. If you like Inside Perry, we encourage you to subscribe and share the podcast with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you around in our amazing community where Georgia comes together.