Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTNRB) will continue its “Tennessee River Grand Slam Cleanup” in Knoxville, Tennessee on its third installment of the four-part cleanup campaign.

The four-week long initiative is engaging hundreds of volunteers along more than 400 miles of the 652-mile Tennessee River. This particular cleanup in Knoxville is supporting the 30th annual Ijams River Rescue, held Saturday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Ijams River Rescue averages about 600 volunteers each year who clean dozens of sites along the river and its tributaries across Knox County and parts of Loudon and Blount counties. For the cleanup, boats will put be putting in at 10 a.m. at TVA boat ramp at 5765-6171 Asheville Hwy. in Knoxville and the Louisville boat ramp at 3267 Cox Rd. in Louisville.

KTNRB has partnered with Living Lands & Waters for the Grand Slam Cleanup to take volunteers out on 30-foot-long steel plate boats to remove trash from the water and shorelines. Joining on the boats will be the Knoxville Volunteer Rotary Club and the teens they mentor in the Austin East Interact Club.

The cleanups are offering timely relief to the Tennessee Valley, which was hit with severe flooding this February – the wettest February ever recorded in the region. Keep America Beautiful awarded a $10,000 Community Restoration and Resiliency Fund grant to KTNRB to offer cleanup relief following February’s floods.

This Tennessee River Grand Slam Cleanup is part of a nationwide effort known as the Great American Cleanup®, the signature program of the Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s largest community improvement nonprofit organization. 

At 7 p.m. on Friday, April 5, Dan Breidenstein of Living Lands & Waters will speak at Ijams Nature Center as part of Ijams’ Take Action! conservation series. Breidenstein will discuss solutions for the plastic crisis in our waterways and share his experience of dedicating his career to live on a barge in order to clean North American rivers. Living Lands & Waters is a national nonprofit that has removed 10 million pounds of trash from North American rivers to date. Admission to the lecture event is free. Refreshments, including beer, will be available for purchase.