During this season of giving, how about instead of running out to the nearest mall you give the gift that keeps on giving?

That's right, we're talking about the most valuable presents there are: you and your time.

Have you considered adopting a section of state highways as an experience for bringing friends and family together toward a shared vision? It's a thoughtful, meaningful gift with no need to wait in crowded stores or busy checkout lines.

It won't fit under the Christmas tree, but the gift of you helps reduce unsightly litter on Arizona’s highways and is a meaningful way to both help beautify your community throughout the year and spend time with loved ones.

If you decide to check this off your list, ADOT is ready to give too. We'll help you locate a 2-mile section of highway for your group to help keep litter free. We also supply trash bags and safety vests as stocking stuffers. Notify us after your first cleanup and we’ll celebrate your volunteer effort by unwrapping Adopt a Highway signs with your group's name at each end of your section.

The Adopt a Highway website explains how you can get started and provides contact information for your area of the state.

And a special thank you to the 10,000 Arizona volunteers who already Keep it Grand. The Adopt a Highway Volunteer Program wishes you and your loved ones a safe and joyous holiday season.

For the past 10 years Sally Ochoa has maintained a section of US 60 near Show Low. Sally and her husband, Nacho, adopted a mile of highway in 2009, a year after their son was killed in a car crash.

Sally and Nacho always read the Adopt a Highway signs when they were driving and thought it was a special way of honoring someone. After their son, Manuel, passed away, they adopted milepost 346-347 and maintained it together. It’s located near their summer home.

When Nacho passed away four years ago, his name was added to the sign and Sally has continued the cleanups. Both Manuel and Nacho’s ashes are buried near their Adopt a Highway mile.

Sally fondly remembers Manuel and Nacho, “They both never met someone they didn’t love and were always there for everyone else before themselves … wanting to do things for other people. That’s why this mile is so important to me because I can give back to them.”

Sally says adopting a highway is a “feel-good” thing to do and it helps the community while keeping a loved one’s memory alive. She knows her son would have been proud of her and Nacho for making his life memorable.

Visit the Adopt a Highway website to learn more about how you can participate.

This Adopt a Highway story begins in 1959, when Arthur “Busty” Lewis Perry and his son Wayne Hill Perry began building a cabin at Hawley Lake.

Arthur and his son Wayne owned the cabin until the 1980s and often brought Wayne’s kids to the White Mountains. Wayne’s son, Chris Perry, now owns a cabin in Greer and takes his young sons, Elmer and Arthur, to the mountains. Chris hopes to teach them about caring for our forests.

Chris first learned about ADOT's Adopt a Highway program more than 20 years ago when he worked for the Arizona Mountain Inn in Flagstaff and employees regularly gathered to clean their Adopt a Highway mile.

Those cleanups stuck with Chris. In 2018 Chris and his brother Peter adopted mile 4-5 along State Route 473. That mile honors Chris and Peter’s father and grandfather.

This past June, Chris and his brother surprised their dad by driving him to the highway marker. It was the first time Wayne Perry had seen his name on the sign and learned his kids had adopted a highway in his honor.

Chris said, “My father was very pleased with the sign and the idea of keeping this scenic highway clean. He was proud to see the sign and I think he knows it will be there for some time. My grandfather, Arthur, also loved the White Mountains and was an avid fisherman. I think he would have been very happy with what we’ve done.”

The Perrys plan to clean their mile for many years to come and encourage others to consider adopting their own highway segment.

“To anyone who is thinking about adopting a highway, I say go for it. It’s important work, whether on a scenic highway or on an average stretch of road between two points,” said Chris Perry.

The Adopt a Highway website explains how you can adopt and will show you which sections are available for adoption.

A new Adopt a Highway sign reading, “God’s Country, in memory of Philip C. Brogdon” went up near Big Lake this year. The family of Philip C. Brogdon recently spent some time explaining the meaning behind the sign and how they came to the decision to adopt.

For five generations, Philip Brogdon’s family has been traveling to and camping at Big Lake. When Philip became sick with pancreatic cancer, he asked his family to promise they would continue to get together as a family. Amber Barney, Philip’s daughter, says they’ve tried to continue the tradition of going to Big Lake each year to camp and fish.

Amber tells us when her family would drive up to the lake her dad would always roll down the window and say, “This is God’s country.”

Philip’s love of the area led the family to adopt State Route 260 at milepost 399 this year, and her dad’s words inspired the sign.

Amber says the family is excited to start working on their mile, “I think it’s a great opportunity to do something good in the place you call home. Arizona is a beautiful state, and we hope by doing this, we can help keep it that way for many generations to come.”

The Adopt a Highway website explains how to adopt a highway and a map displays which segments are available for adoption.

Driving nearly five hours to pick up litter along a highway might not sound like your idea of good time, but the Clark family has been doing just that for 11 years.

Jim Clark grew up traveling from Tucson to the Hawley Lake area with his parents, Bob and Joan Clark. For two decades, Bob and Joan passed their love of the White Mountains on to their family through camping and fishing. When Bob passed away in 2008, Jim felt the best way to honor his dad and relive those memories was to do something to keep the environment clean. This led to the family adopting milepost 1-2 along State Route 473.

Today the family owns a home in Show Low, and their adopted mile honors both Bob and Joan Clark. Jim usually cleans their segment with his wife, Sonja, and daughters Caitlin and Brooke, along with a few other friends. Jim tells us when the family drives to their section of highway, it’s much more than just a trip to pick up trash. It’s a time to share family memories. 

“You get so much out of cleaning up Arizona's highways. It is such a beautiful state, and it's our duty to keep it clean. It's a great way to gather friends, family and associates to celebrate something that has meaning and purpose. We will always keep our SR 473 segment. It is a wonderful tribute to my parents, who always took the time to take us camping and fishing in the White Mountains.”

If you have someone you’d like to honor by adopting a mile along a state highway, please visit the Adopt a Highway website.
 

Adopt a Highway volunteers hauled in a lot of litter for National CleanUp Day on Sept. 21! We tallied up the totals and were blown away by how much they collected in just one day.

Ninety volunteers filled 196 bags. Those 196 bags weighed in at 2,665 pounds. That calculates to more than 13 pounds of litter picked up by each volunteer!

ADOT Adopt a Highway Manager Mary Currie traveled 630 miles in one day to visit volunteer groups in Payson, Show Low and Flagstaff. The photos you see are from her travels across the state on that day.

Thanks to all of the volunteers who came out on National CleanUp Day to help keep Arizona grand.

Please visit our Adopt a Highway website to learn how you can adopt your own highway segment.

If you drive on US 60 near Gold Canyon, you’ll likely notice an Adopt a Highway sign. It honors veterans Joe Diaz and Manuel Zaragoza along with Manuel’s wife, Sarah.

Bea Sanchez tells us Adopt a Highway offers her family a special way of remembering three family members who have passed away. Manuel and Sarah Zaragoza are Bea’s parents, while Joe Diaz was Bea’s son-in-law.

According to Bea Sanchez, “The Adopt-a-Highway program is amazing. It not only gives us the unique opportunity to honor our loved ones, we are also able to contribute to the beauty of our great state of Arizona.”

Bea shared more about those honored on US 60 at milepost 200. She tells us her father, Manuel, was a World War II veteran who loved country music and "M*A*S*H." Despite his education ending at seventh grade, he was a self-taught master of many trades. Sarah Zaragoza, Bea’s mother, loved Mexican music, dancing and holidays.

Bea remembers Joe as a man who lit up any room he entered and lived life to the fullest. Joe Diaz, who was also a veteran, died at the age of 54.

If you’d like to pay tribute to a loved one through Adopt a Highway, you can visit the Adopt a Highway website to learn more about the program.

ADOT Adopt a Highway volunteer groups raked-in – literally – hundreds of bags of trash from highways across Arizona this past Saturday, Sept. 21, which marked National CleanUp Day. The count currently stands at 107 bags collected, and reports are still rolling in.

With a colleague, I had the pleasure of traveling to thank several of the groups that turned out to help keep Arizona grand, joining people united for the purpose of reducing litter in their communities all over.

Increased awareness of the Adopt a Highway program brought participation from some groups for the first time on National CleanUp Day, and others joined-in again this, our second year. 

These groups deserve special acknowledgement for responding to our call to
action:

• Don and Imogene Bennett, Family & Friends of Jason Bennett,” Phoenix
• Patricia Woolsey, “Larry Woolsey Forever,” Star Valley
• Cindy Silliman, “Maranatha Bible Church," Show Low
• Linda Philbrook, “Sasquatch Marc Philbrook We Love You,” Show Low
• Michel and Chris Fluhr, “Clint Fluhr Forever In Our Hearts,” Tonto Village
• Terri Miller, “In Memory Of Mike Hancock,” Happy Jack
• Marilya Veteto Reese, “NAU German Club,” Flagstaff
• Eddie and Sharon Gillam, “St. Luke’s Episcopal Church,” Chino Valley
• Tora Moody, “St. John’s Episcopal Church,” Williams
• Steve Bowles, “Brian R. Bowles,” Sunflower

Thank you to those of you who stopped to warmly welcome us to your miles. We appreciated your smiles and the positive impact you are making on your community and the state of Arizona. 

With National CleanUp Day approaching on Sept. 21, I want to express my thanks to our volunteers and sponsors who consistently pick up trash along our state highways. These volunteers have cleaned up 1,672 miles of Arizona highways. You are indeed making a difference in keeping our roads litter-free.

National Clean Up Day is a day set aside for individuals and organizations to work together in reducing litter in their communities.

According to the statistics we keep for our Adopt A Highway program, we have permitted 953 groups and 9,868 individual volunteers who have been responsible for collecting 13,828 bags of trash. We also have calculated the number of volunteer labor hours which translates to $500,000 in volunteer labor value savings. Taxpayers have certainly benefited from our Adopt A Highway program.

Our sponsor program is designed to have civic-minded sponsors work with businesses that contract with maintenance providers to cleanup roadside litter throughout the state. The majority of our sponsors are located in the Central District which is the Phoenix Metropolitan area. For 2018, the sponsors collected 89,896 bags of trash; if weighed, the total weight would be 1,230,676 pounds of trash.  We saw an increase of 9,454 bags of trash and 129,425 pounds of trash from 2017 in the area.

Not all highway segments have been adopted. We have an interactive map showing which Adopt A Highway segments are waiting for volunteers. Visit azdot.gov/AdoptaHighway to learn more about our program and become a volunteer.

I encourage everyone to do their part in keeping Arizona roads litter free.  Please think twice before you decide to throw away a plastic soda bottle, paper sack, or cigarette butt out of a car window. Besides making our roads look dirty, these items can clog our drainage systems and create problems during rain storms.

Thank you trash slayers! I appreciate the work you do in fulfilling our motto:  Arizona, Keep It Grand!

Calling all Adopt a Highway volunteers!

National CleanUp Day is coming up on Saturday, Sept. 21. This is a day set aside for individuals and organizations to unite for the purpose of reducing litter in their communities in every part of the world.

Last year, Adopt a Highway groups turned out around the state to clean up their adopted highway segments. All together these teams succeeded in a collecting more than 200 bags of litter from Arizona's highways.

We're encouraging ADOT Adopt a Highway volunteer groups to participate in National CleanUp Day by contacting their ADOT district office to schedule to be out on the 21st. Participating groups must report their litter within three days so that litter collection results may be shared with volunteers.

The Adopt a Highway team plans to visit as many volunteer groups around the state as logistics allow. If you would like to participate, please send the following information to [email protected] and we will do our best to visit you!

Group Contact Name/phone: 
Sign Name:
Mileposts:
Cleanup (start time):
Cleanup (end time):

All respondents will receive notification from me prior to National CleanUp Day.

We encourage you to send us your group photos for possible use in in an upcoming ADOT blog, and we'd love to see and share your cleanup photos on social media. Please use the hashtag #NationalCleanUpDay and tag your photos with @ArizonaDOT. 

Thank you for considering National Clean UpDay as an opportunity to help reduce litter along our highways.

Arizona, Keep It Grand!