Join the Effort to Clean the Queen

Published on April 08, 2024

Volunteers at a local cleanup event.

Earth Day is right around the corner, which means it’s nearly time for the third annual Clean the Queen!

Join Envision Charlotte, Keep Charlotte Beautiful, and City of Charlotte Solid Waste Services for the week-long series of volunteer events held during Earth Week, April 15-20. This is a great opportunity to make our environment and the Queen City even better. Your time will be well spent either picking up litter around the city or making sound panels.

Clean the Queen is a popular event, and spots are filling up quickly! Check out the Envision Charlotte Google Calendar to see what volunteer slots are still available. Each day of the event will have two shifts – the first from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and the second from 1:30-4 p.m. Shifts have space for 10 volunteers, so if the spot says FULL, someone else has already secured it.

If you see an open spot you’d like to fill, email erica@envisioncharlotte.org. Don’t sign up for more spots than you need. If you have a few extra people who want to participate the day of, that is easier to accommodate than holding spots for people who don’t come.

Volunteers will meet at the Innovation Barn at the start of their shift and receive instructions and maps from Solid Waste Services and gear from Keep Charlotte Beautiful. There are bathrooms on site as well as a water fountain and refillable water bottle station. Parking can be found in front of the building, behind the building, and along Otts Street, but we recommend carpooling where possible. Throughout the week, Change Please Coffee will be open if anyone wants to grab a drink or snack.

Clean the Queen won’t be all work and no play! There will be three contests going on and a bingo game that will enter participants into a prize drawing. The contests will be:

  • Most volunteers from one company.
  • Most litter picked up from one company (number of full garbage bags).
  • Most sound panels made by one company.

The five days of volunteerism will be capped off with a celebration on Saturday, April 20. All volunteers are welcome to attend. Prize drawings and contest winners will be announced at this celebration.

Keep Charlotte Beautiful, which will be supplying vests, gloves, litter pickers and bags, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Clean the Queen is one of the many initiatives that the group collaborates on to help educate and motivate Charlotteans to enhance and beautify the community.

Let’s clean the Queen City together!