Bhavya Yerriboyina at Washington Elementary wins Litter Bit Better Art Contest

This year, 292 4^th grade students from 18 schools in Rochester put their creative ideas about littering into entries for the Help Make Rochester a Litter Bit Better art contest. This year’s Grand Prize Winner is Bhavya Yerriboyina, a student in Mrs. Sorensen’s fourth grade class at Washington Elementary.

Bhavya will receive: a Litter Bit Better T-shirt, a large poster, a $100 gift card for their classroom, and a pizza lunch with Mayor Kim Norton for the class. Additionally, Bhavya’s artwork will become the centerpiece of pledge cards that encourage students to pledge not to litter, to always pick up litter, and to tell others not to litter. The pledge cards will be given to all Rochester 4^th graders in April 2020, just before the start of Litter Bit Better week.

All winners will be invited to participate in the June 2020 Rochesterfest parade to help distribute litter bags. Seventeen additional “School Winners” were also selected as having the best entries from their schools. They also won a Litter Bit Better T-shirt and a letter from Mayor Norton. They are: Ruby Anderson (Bamber Valley Elementary), Evie Strouf (Bishop Elementary), Lucy Peck (Elton Hills Elementary), Miette Olsen (Franklin Elementary), Alana Trias (Gage Elementary), Cassandra Butzer (Gibbs Elementary), Evangeline Bergmann (Holy Spirit Catholic School), Nicole Ferguson (Jefferson Elementary), Vyvien Hartley (Lincoln Elementary), Ava Anderson (Longfellow Elementary), Kimora McGee (Pinewood Elementary), Lucy Kreuter (Rochester Arts & Science Academy), Maddie Meyer (Resurrection Lutheran School), Aviello Bell (Rochester Central Lutheran School), Peter Takahashi (Schaeffer Academy), Stella Collura (St. Francis of Assisi School), and Gabrielle Ledvina (Sunset Terrace Elementary).

For the fourteenth year in a row, students, families, businesses and individuals pick a date, pick a time, and pick a place to help pick up litter in Rochester. The week of April 25- May 3, 2020 has been set aside for everyone to do their part to “Help Make Rochester a Litter Bit Better” Registration for pick up locations opens on March 1^st at www.rneighbors.org/litterbitbetter.