Welcome to iron sharpens iron. My name is Dewayne drum. I'm a co hosts.
And I'm Leon Robinson. Also co hosts.
So we want to thank you because I just put you on the spot. So you brought your brain brother to stop the until you have a seat.
And listen when you said Germantown I was like, Okay, let's just, let's just get this guy because I have a history in German town. I used to work at the German town Korea, as a photographer, and I used to go for 15 years and people that went out of business. Today, yeah, whatever. But you hit a chord there. So who are you and what do you do?
Thank you guys for having me. Okay. My name is Matthew George. I'm the Business Development Manager over in Germantown at the Germantown United CDC. And I also have initiative called I Love that hood. So I'm the founder of that as
well. Great, great, great. Tell us about I love our hood. Okay,
I love that hood, starting back in 2019, just living in Germantown that stuff. And just coming home one day, I was pretty fed up with just stepping over piles and piles of trash. Yeah. And we got a busy corridor. I'm living smack dab on my corridor as well. So I had to go past that each and every day. So I mean, I don't know, I didn't know how things worked in the city. I didn't know anything about the CDC. And just as a concerned citizen, I want to help out. So I saw overflowing trash cans, I wanted to give more opportunities for trash to be collected. So their GoFundMe, friends and family a raise a couple of $100 just to get a few trash cans. Oh, get out. That was in 2019. So from three trash cans now we have over 150 now across the city. So that's that's manned by people that are residents, business owners who just want to take care of their neighborhood and block. Oh, yes. But
you know, when I used to work for the Germantown courier, we had an article that I used to go out, and we call it the trash basher. And what it was, is we found the worst trash that was in the community, and who was responsible for it and put them on the spot, then those people will get out there and clean that thing up. Yeah. So
that's great, because that's, that's accountability. And pretty much that's that's kind of what led me into this position. I want it to have a direct impact on my neighborhood, the neighborhood that I lived in, like I was in insurance before this, and I was helping people, but it wasn't directly helping the people that surrounded me. So that's what led me on my journey to join the neighborhood CDC. So it was it's definitely accountability, something I take very seriously. Because at the end of the day, I'm cleaning up other people's trash, we also take care of our our cleaning corridor program as well. So we got a team of guys out there every single day, cleaning our corridor, and that's needed. Yeah, it's needed, especially in places that are, are usually in minority communities. So those these entities that come into these neighborhoods, even commuters and stuff like that they they have a responsibility in that as well. So accountabilities is, is good to hold people accountable, but we have to hold ourselves accountable, and see where we can help out. Great,
great. So what's the difference between garbage and trash?
For me, it's all the same, it was on the ground. But I mean, I guess yeah, when it when it comes down to the technical term, garbage is something that would we say would not be reusable, or something like that, some of that will go and to either compost or to the just the trash dumps. I say trash is paper products, different plastic products, things that we can actually collect and reuse. But, again, all this stuff ends up on the ground anyway. So it's as far as recognizing why is that happening? Educate educating our communities, businesses and residents on on ways to prevent that. And again, holding people accountable for that. But also just filling in those gaps. There's a there's a lot of gaps when it comes to trash collection. So I mean, I'm I'm just here to be just a tool and the source of this big huge city.
What kind of positive impact have you had
Um, I mean, I think a lot has been changed since I joined the CDC, just from being a citizen to actually be involved in our neighborhood operates and stuff. I've seen a shift in the business owners actually wanting to keep the neighborhood clean. We've also done a bunch of volunteer cleanups, we have our own garden club now. And that's just involving a bunch of volunteers and neighbors to actually get together and, and actually accomplish something that we all want. So is just seeing that everybody wants to same goal, and just presenting those opportunities and different things to do that.
And your opinion, do you think the city does enough to? To make us not do trash so much? The citizens? Are you thinking the city? Do you think they pay a port in part, or are they not paying that pot?
Yeah, I think they're a very important part. A forceful Yeah, so I mean, I think trash collection definitely was on the radar during the pandemic, because it didn't just hit our communities hit everybody's communities. And we saw how much we depended on the city to take care of, of our trash issues. Philly is a big city, right? It's a OC two, so it wasn't meant to, to hold this many people. So when it comes to finding solutions, we have to find those different things, which is teaming up with CDC, he's teaming up with the Department of Commerce, to actually provide the funds to organizations that that don't have a cleaning service. And they've been a big help in, in that, that search for let's let's solve this problem. So the Department of Commerce, they have a program called taking care of business. It's over 80 projects going on right now all across the city in these communities that, that there is a trash issue. And funds are going to Business Association CDCs to provide cleaning projects for these neighborhoods. So it's been very successful in our neighborhood, very grateful for that. And those are the ways that I think the city is helping out it's connecting other tools with their tools. So we need them no matter what, as we as we can see, but it's it's also filling in those gaps. This this is a very community driven goal that that needs to be communicated with all of these associations, CDCs so that we can accomplish that goal. Okay,
thank you so much. I know I put you on it's fine until you have a C. We appreciate you. Being on iron sharpens iron podcast, and this ain't the last time I pull up to the microphone. Thank you once again. Be safe out here.