Golden Dustpan awards

The City of Vancouver and Keep Vancouver Spectacular send out a big thanks to all the block captains who lead the way for the program by organizing the cleanups and recruiting the volunteers. We give a round of applause and appreciation to everyone who took part in the cleanups. It's your hard work that makes this campaign more successful each year.

The City presents the Golden Dust Pan awards annually to groups or individuals that stood out in their commitment to their communities and embodied the spirit of Keep Vancouver Spectacular.

A special thanks to our 2011 winners:

South Hill (Fraser Street) Business Association

Since its inception in 2007, the South Hill BIA, which is located along Fraser Street between 41st and 50th Avenues, identified community appearance as one of the key areas it wanted to improve. A Street Cleanliness and Maintenance Committee was formed to ensure that the South Hill area is clean, well maintained and attractive. The committee also encouraged business and property owners to show pride and a sense of ownership in the cleanliness of the community. For the last three years, the business association has organized an annual street cleaning event to promote the vision of a litter-free community. On May 14th, 80 people from the neighbourhood gave up part of their Saturday to take part in a huge cleanup of the area.

Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church

The second recipient of the Golden Dust Pan Award is the Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church. The church joined KVS in May 2009 as 35 members of the congregation cleaned up litter on the streets in their Sunset neighbourhood. Six months later a block captain from the church asked if the city we would support a joint litter and leaf removal clean up. In November, 50 volunteers removed litter and also filled dozens of paper bags with leaves. It was the first KVS litter and leaf clean up. In 2010 the church conducted another leaf clean up as well as two separate litter cleanups. On June 5th, 65 volunteers once again removed litter from the streets around the church.

Canadian Direct Insurance

The final recipient of our Golden Dust Pan Award is Canadian Direct Insurance. CDI first joined KVS in 2009, not only as a sponsor of this program, but to organize their first clean up in the downtown area. On May 31st, 50 Canadian Direct employees and family members went to work on a Sunday to remove litter from streets in the southern area of the downtown core. In 2010 CDI returned to organize a mid-week cleanup in May and last year on June 16th over 50 employees helped clean up the mess left in the downtown core after the Stanley Cup rioting the previous night. Canadian Direct has continued to sponsor our program with funding which helps us provide extras for the volunteers. Also, CDI’s involvement in KVS provides a corporate presence to our program, as the City tries to improve participation from the business community.