River of Dreams

Clayton team members are joining forces with Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful to care for one of the Volunteer State's most critical natural resources.

Great minds think alike, as the saying goes. And in the case of Kathleen Gibi and Mike Duncan, sometimes those minds get into sync down to the hour. As the executive director of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (the first water-focused branch of Keep America Beautiful), Gibi often scouts for locations that could benefit from a volunteer cleanup day. In 2023, she was amid such a mission when she noticed a marina called Duncan’s Boat Dock. “I made a note to call them that afternoon to see if they would want to get involved in our efforts,” recalls Gibi. As luck would have it, Clayton team member and owner of the dock, Mike Duncan, had the same idea. “I was about to pick up the phone and he called me,” says Gibi. Turns out, Duncan had recently read an article about Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and admired its goals. “One of the things I love most about working for Clayton is its mission to do good. I’ve learned to be on the lookout for ways I, and the company as a whole, can help,” says Duncan, whose family has owned the marina since 1944. Gibi and Duncan immediately connected on the ways in which Clayton could put its strengths behind the nonprofits’ efforts.

First up, coordinating a cleanup day during which Clayton team members could use their Volunteer Time Off (a program in which team members across the U.S. can use eight hours of paid time off to volunteer for local causes) to remove litter and debris from the river. Team member LaWanda Gandy, TMX manager for Clayton Halls Home Building facility, helped to get that effort off the ground and into the water, as it were. “So many of our team members love to hunt and fish and do things in the outdoors. I knew this was something they would all really connect with,” she says. At the cleanup, more than 70 team members were divided into small groups and driven by boat to different parts of the river to whip the area into shape. Over the course of the day, they gathered more than 5,000 pounds of garbage and debris. “All volunteer work is satisfying, but there is something uniquely rewarding about the visuals of seeing change so quickly,” says Duncan.

There was also an added benefit for the volunteers—time together outside the office. “It’s team-building, too. You’re building relationships with folks that aren’t on your team at work and you may not interact with otherwise,” Gandy adds. The success of that first cleanup day led to immediate plans for another. In March, a combined 266 team members met for an additional three cleanups, collecting nearly 46,000 pounds of garbage.

Clayton has found other ways to contribute. All of Clayton’s dozen facilities on the Tennessee River watershed now have cigarette receptacles to help keep cigarette filters from entering the river. Nearly 15,000 cigarette filters have already been submitted for recycling.

A great deal has been accomplished since Clayton first teamed up with Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful, but Gibi isn’t surprised by the success of the partnership. “I had always heard that Clayton has the nicest people. I’ve learned firsthand it is absolutely true.”

DO YOUR PART

Interested in sharing your time with Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful? You can follow the organization’s cleanup schedule at KeepTNRiverBeatiful.org/upcomingcleanups and Facebook.com/KeepTNRiverBeautiful. You can also visit the group’s website to learn about its Pledge for Rivers Program, which seeks to stop litter before it becomes litter by pledging to give up one single-use item for a year