Celebrating Adopt-a-Drain’s 10th Anniversary!
We are celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Adopt-a-Drain program in 2024. Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter proclaimed November 20, 2024, as Adopt-a-Drain Day to honor the milestone!
The program began as a pilot in the Como neighborhood with CRWD and our partners at the City of Saint Paul and Center for Global Environmental Education, Hamline University (CGEE). Starting with a group of 31 adopters in 2014, the idea caught on and has kept growing since. In the past decade, Adopt-a-Drain expanded across Minnesota and is now in several other regions, with more joining soon. And of that initial group of 31 adopters? An astounding 77% are still active volunteers in the original neighborhood! Some were even able to join us last week to celebrate.
Adopting a drain is simple: residents adopt a storm drain and volunteer to clear it of leaves and debris that would otherwise flow to nearby lakes and rivers. They track their cleaning efforts to protect clean water on a shared dashboard. Their collective impact adds up to impressive results for water quality! Adopt-a-Drain volunteers in Saint Paul have removed nearly 216,000 pounds of debris and sediment from storm drains since 2014! You can join in and adopt a storm drain near you at mn.adopt-a-drain.org
We are grateful to our program partners and all of the drain adopters, past and present, working together to protect our lakes and rivers by cleaning storm drains!
City of Saint Paul Proclamation
WHEREAS, Adopt-a-Drain is celebrating its 10th anniversary on November 20, 2024, at the Capitol Region Watershed District Office; and
WHEREAS, Adopt-a-Drain began as a pilot project in the neighborhood surrounding Como Lake in Saint Paul in collaboration with Capitol Region Watershed District, Hamline University’s Center for Global Environmental Education, the City of Saint Paul, and the Metro Watershed Partners; and
WHEREAS, Adopt-a-Drain has expanded from the pilot project to an annual program in many Twin Cities metropolitan communities, greater Minnesota, and other states across the country; and
WHEREAS, Adopt-a-Drain promotes civic engagement, volunteerism, protection of water quality, environmental stewardship, and reduction of localized flooding and stormwater runoff pollution; and
WHEREAS, 2,311 Saint Paul community volunteers have adopted 3,988 drains since the implementation of the program, effectively removing nearly 216,000 pounds of sediment and debris from storm drains; and
WHEREAS, we join members of our community in celebrating a decade of protecting water quality in our area, including the Mississippi River.
Now, Therefore, I, Melvin Carter, Mayor of the City of Saint Paul, do hereby proclaim November 20, 2024, to be:
Adopt-A-Drain Day in the City of Saint Paul
In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the City of Saint Paul to be affixed this Twentieth day of November in the Year Two Thousand Twenty-Four.
