Us folks from Polk County, FL aren’t exactly known for our environmental mentality.  We’re more backyard barbecue, rodeo-type people.  We like air boats and fishing tournaments and Bud Light.  And being a native of Polk County, if you had told me that we would someday be receiving requests from the likes of Japan and California to model their own environmental clean up initiatives after ours, well, I would have laughed at you.

 

 

And the lady responsible for all of this positive action is Haines City’s very own Janis Davis, an obvious champion of planet earth in her red and black polka dotted VW “Bug” with the words “Litter Bugs Me” emblazoned on the sides.

 

I spoke to Janis last weekend for the first time (and since she’s my new hero, I promise it won’t be the last) while she was attending an event sponsored by Keep Polk County Beautiful, Inc. So far I haven’t told a single person about this event that didn’t love the genius and the irony.  It’s a lake clean up modeled after a bass fishing tournament!  Pure inspiration, people.  How else do you get a bunch of good ol’ boys to clean up beer cans  and shopping carts out of Lake Kissimmee on a perfectly good weekend?

 

About 400 air boats show up at the lake, (this is the clean up’s second year), spend all day collecting garbage, get weighed in, and whoever has the most trash wins.  Except, actually we all win, since Florida has more shoreline on its lakes than both coasts combined!  That’s a lot of water that sees a lot of pollution.  Janis tells me that they have picked up everything from shopping carts to houseboat roofs to stray saltwater buoys in the lakes, and this year the Sheriff’s department donated sonar equipment to dredge the bottom for cars and other large items.  Not exactly swimmer friendly waters.  And since Polk County has traditionally been a large agricultural area there’s no telling what invisible pollution lurks in those murky depths.

 

Polk is also the largest county in Florida, and often considered one of the most culturally and economically depressed.  But thanks to visionaries like Janis and her team, and some other stellar individuals, our community is seeing a change in consciousness, that with the area’s recent population boom, couldn’t have come at a better time.  And while I hope to never see the end of our barbecue days, it’s nice to see the place I grew up in grow up a little, too.