RICHMOND, Va. -- The fourth annual ‘Cozy Ol’ Brewgrass Festival’ will celebrate and help support the work of a Richmond non-profit that cleans up Virginia’s forests and parks.
Brian Bell founded Keep Virginia Cozy in 2017 and has since welcomed an explosion of volunteers willing to help him pick up trash and litter across metro Richmond.
He calls himself the "chief dirtbag." Bell started his mission on the weekends after seeing trash along the trails.
"I feel like we're just a group of outdoorsy people who like to clean up where we are and and leave it better than we found it," he said.
For the fourth year in a row, the group’s festival on Thursday at the 14th Street location of Riverside Outfitters has already sold out.
He still encourages you to follow their work and invites you to join in on a future cleanup.
Since the group started weighing their hauls in 2019, they have picked up 650,000 pounds of litter.
That’s the equivalent of two blue whales.
In just the past year, Bell said they have picked up half a million pounds of litter.
“It's a depressingly awesome number. Just because it's a bummer that it was out there to begin with, but it's even cooler that it's not there anymore, which is rad,” Bell explained.
In addition to the poundage collected, Bell said what they do best is create community.
He hoped Richmonders or visitors weren’t intentionally throwing trash on the ground.
“We also live in a place where people care about that stuff, you know, and they want to show up and make it better,” Bell said of his volunteers.
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