THE PINEY CREEK DIRTY FINGERS GARDEN CLUB was featured in "Litterature," the statewide newsletter of the Adopt-A-Highway program. Front row, left to right: Joyce Dixon, Joy Murray, Glenna Gambill, Iris Gambill and Robin Gambill. Second row: Adelai Cox, Susanne Hampton and Erora Hash. Back row: Myrtle Phipps, Julie Duncan, Johnsie McIntyre, Sara McMillan, Carol Brooks, Gary Gambill and Margaret McGrady.

Dirty Fingers Garden Club is featured in statewide newsletter

The Piney Creek Dirty Fingers Garden Club has been featured in a statewide newsletter for their efforts in Adopt-A-Highway litter cleanups.

The club was featured in the winter 2004 edition of "Litterature," a newsletter published twice a year by the Office of Beautification Programs, N.C. Department of Transportation.

The feature-length article begins on the newsletter's front page and includes a photo of members.

"The overall reason we feature any particular group is because of their dedication to the effort, their longevity in the program — just about everything we learned about them," said George Kapetanakis, editor of the newsletter.

The article states, "Since 1997, this group has picked up enough litter to fill 216 bags or an estimated 3,130 pounds."

The club is praised by Curtis Riggans, Alleghany County Adopt-A-Highway coordinator, for their commitment to the program, their participation in litter sweeps and for "reporting their pickups in a timely manner."

The club joined the Adopt-A-Highway program in 1996, but had already been picking up trash on Piney Creek roadsides for some time, the article states. They pick up trash on four sections of road totaling 5.8 miles. Fifteen of the 23 members participate regularly.

The club "does much more than what they signed up to do," the newsletter states. Some members clean up other roads, and members often do more than the required four pickups a year. Some recycle items from their pickups.

Members celebrate their efforts at an annual end-of-the-year "poor man's dinner" featuring pinto beans and cornbread, the newsletter said. Sara McMillan, past president of the club, said the article probably came about because of the litter pickup reports the club sends to the state office.

"We are a very active club, I think," she said. Besides litter pickups, the club has planted and maintains a butterfly garden at Piney Creek School. It has plant beds at the new Piney Creek Post Office, Piney Creek United Methodist Church cemetery, and its own building at the intersection of N.C. 93 and Pugh Road.

"We are one of two garden clubs in the state that own their own building," McMillan said. "It was a church built in 1825 and we are maintaining it in a historically correct way."

They have painted and rewired it, refinished floors, fixed the roof, and made other repairs.

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