Jason Beard, 29, is a Shaw resident and creator of treeboxvodka.com, a neighborhood-based blog.
What is Treebox Vodka?
It’s a blog that I started last year, basically to document and criticize all the trash in the Shaw neighborhood of D.C. That was essentially it, telling stories, little cleanups here and there, and finding funny trash along the way. There’s all sorts of stuff on the streets.
How did you come up with the name?
We’ve got all these tree boxes and they’re littered with little bottles of Velicoff vodka.
How’s turnout for your cleanups?
We did our first in August 2007. It was me and a friend of mine. We coordinated over e-mail, created a few fliers and put them up in a local coffee shop and spread the word through local bloggers and e-mail. We did our first one on 7th Street at Rhode Island up to the new convention center. We had about 15 people come out. That was just a random Saturday, not a well-announced cleanup, but it was an amazing turnout.
Found anything interesting or disturbing?
We’ve got all the regular neighborhood trash, the McDonald’s and the vodka. We find letters to who knows what. People send me the trash they find and it’s kind of gross, but we get lots of condoms from alleyways.
Are residents eager to take care of their neighborhood?
Of the people I’ve attracted, they’re eager to keep it up. There’s a pretty active community that wants to be involved.
What are your plans for 2008?
We’re going to try to evolve Treebox Vodka more into a formal activity. It’s going to happen definitely every month starting in February — 11 different cleanups in 11 different spots. It’s really grassroots. We’re trying to keep it informal. Hopefully people will move on and continue the message elsewhere.
