Keep Virginia Cozy volunteers at a recent litter cleanup (Photo courtesy Keep Virginia Cozy)
In early spring, a team of smiling volunteers darted around the trails of Ancarrow’s Landing like ants at a picnic, happy to be toting large, white grain bags filled with trash.
The group of primarily University of Richmond law students was volunteering with Keep Virginia Cozy, a Richmond-based nonprofit founded by Brian Bell to keep Virginia’s wilderness clean and accessible through litter cleanups. Volunteers collected over 250 pounds of litter from the park that day.
“I didn’t really have any direct agenda when I started this thing, other than to try to get people excited about cleaning up outdoors,” says Brian Bell, the organization’s founder.
Keep Virginia Cozy has cleared more than 500,000 pounds of trash since its start in 2017. Volunteers wear reusable gloves and put trash in recycled grain bags from local breweries, making cleanups waste-free, Bell says.
There are roughly two public cleanups at parks and natural spaces in the Richmond region organized each month, typically on Sundays. Social groups and businesses can set up cleanups for their members to get involved together, like the UR Law group did.
In its early days, group cleanups typically only drew a handful of people, Bell says, but the scope has expanded significantly. Kylie Heald, a Richmonder who volunteers with the group, says that she rarely sees a community cleanup with fewer than 20 people in attendance.
“I think everybody who I’ve met through Keep Virginia Cozy is a contender to be a longtime friend,” Heald says. “There’s so many shared values, and people who genuinely do interesting things in their life and want to have meaningful conversations and have an impact on the city.”
Soon after it started, Bell sought to spread awareness through the kinds of interests he and other volunteers shared: music and local beer.
Entering its fourth year, the Cozy Ol’ Brewgrass Festival is Bell’s brainchild, founded as a way to thank the volunteers for spending free time on environmental stewardship. “It’s a party to celebrate, literally, outside and the benefits of being outside,” Bell says, “and how you can help make sure that it stays good for other people to enjoy it, too.”
The annual festival, which is set for June 20, features food trucks, vendors, musicians and local craft beer. For the third year, Vasen Brewing Co. brewed a hemp-based IPA, called Cozy Buds, for the event. This year, they moved to the 14th Street facility of Riverside Outfitters to accommodate the expected 350 attendees for the sold-out event.
Partnerships, events and social media play a big role in increasing the organization’s reach, but most of the group’s growth comes via word of mouth, Bell says.
For volunteers, it’s a sense of community that keeps them coming back. “It’s such an approachable group,” says volunteer Michelle McDonald. “I tend to be [shy], and I always feel super, super welcome there.”
“A lot of people want to do good. They just want somebody else to plan it for them,” Bell says.
