Residents in the Village of Somerset in west-central Wisconsin were looking for a way to clean up their community roadways, parks and river banks — with the goal of establishing a long-term, sustainable program to support these efforts.

When a volunteer group formed to lead the charge, it approached the local director of public works with the notion of setting up an annual Earth Day activity to organize clean-up efforts in the Village proper, as well as in neighboring townships.

Working with a minimal budget, the public works director approached MSA with the idea of creating a simple map to guide the project. Excited by the opportunity to up the ante, MSA GIS team members developed a public-facing, editable “Volunteer Street Clean-up” app to map, track and monitor clean-up progress. The app is intended to encourage volunteer roadway adoption, similar to the Adopt-a-Highway program. It utilizes an online mapping program set up through ArcGIS Online which encourages users to interface directly with the app either via desktop or mobile device.

Participants are able to see town and village boundaries as well as which road segments are available for adoption, which are already adopted by volunteers, and which portions have clean-up completed. Interested users can click on any red-colored road segment to see the roadway name and length, and formally adopt the road by entering their name. When an individual or organization adopts a roadway, the color of the road on the map changes from red to yellow. When clean-up is complete, the volunteer can change the status to “completed,” after which the road color changes to green.

Each year, the app auto-reports the total mileage of road and riverfront that was cleaned up during the week of Earth Day, and provides a fun way for community members to engage with each other and encourage ongoing green practices. Since the implementation of the app in 2020, the Earth Day clean-up has become an annual tradition and beloved community activity. It is an excellent example of a small, innovative solution becoming a catalyst for environmental stewardship and community collaboration.