Posted on May 21, 2025 | Blog,News
Library Spotlight: Evangeline Parish Library Trades Trash for Seeds During Love the Boot Week
This year’s Love the Boot Week saw nearly 27,000 volunteers across all 64 parishes roll up their sleeves to clean up Louisiana at 1,408 events statewide. Among the many organizations that made this week a success, KLB’s network of 147 Get Down & Clean Up partner libraries played an essential role by providing litter cleanup kits for checkout, making it easy for individuals and groups to take action in their own communities.
Some libraries went above and beyond, hosting special events and creative initiatives to engage their patrons. One standout example is Evangeline Parish Library, which adopted a rewarding theme for their Love the Boot Week activities: “Let’s Trade: Trash for Seeds.” Throughout the week of April 5–13, the library handed out trash bags that could be filled with litter and returned in exchange for free packets of flower and vegetable seeds.
Tying together the library’s litter kits and Seed Bank programs just makes sense. Beautification efforts such as plantings are proven to reduce littering. Evangeline Parish Library encouraged their patrons to participate in Love the Boot Week in a holistic way by removing litter, planting something beautiful in its place, and in turn helping to prevent future litter.
The library also hosted a fun kickoff event, featuring a local author signing books and a community crafter showcasing crochet. These added touches helped bring more people into the library and created a sense of community around the cleanup effort. They also awarded prizes at the kickoff and throughout the week to those who brought in full trash bags, and a local high school student won the top honor for turning in the most.
With the Get Down & Clean Up program, you don’t need to wait for Love the Boot Week to care for your community! Check the list of participating libraries and visit a location near you to check out litter clean-up supplies such as a grabber tool, safety vest, and trash bags. After you clean up, be sure to return the supplies to your library, and you may find they have a seed bank for your next project!
