The Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful Timeline

OUR Timeline

The story of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful® is only possible because of so many partners and volunteers stepping forward for one common goal: protecting the Tennessee River watershed, the most biodiverse river system in North America! Today, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful is 1st Keep America Beautiful Affiliate in the nation to focus solely on a river and has rallied over 5,000 volunteers to remove over 1 million lbs. of trash from the 7-state Tennessee River watershed.

2013 - a TIMELY spark

In 2013, Keep Tennessee Beautiful hosted its bi-annual conference in Chattanooga, Tenn. Kathleen Gibi from the City of Knoxville was asked to come and speak about greenways. Just before her presentation, Chad Pregracke, founder of the national nonprofit Living Lands & Waters and 2013 CNN Hero of the Year, spoke about river cleanups they had been doing on McCellar Lake in Memphis, TN with Keep Memphis Beautiful and the Tennessee Valley Authority. He also spoke about his autobiography and his nonprofit’s barge that had a floating classroom and hauled trash collected from river cleanups. His message? ‘One person can make a difference.’

After Chad’s presentation, Kathleen approached him and said he had to come to Knoxville, that the river was much improved from the 1960s and 70s before EPA regulations, but still had a bad reputation among many Knoxvillians. Chad’s response: “I love Knoxville! Go Vols!” and handed Kathleen his business card.

After Kathleen gave her presentation, she went back upstairs to her hotel room and called the number on Chad’s card. His wife, Tammy Becker, answered and said she loved the idea of coming to Knoxville, but towing a barge is incredibly expensive. In order to make it feasible, they would have to visit more than one city. Kathleen took that information, went home to Knoxville, spent the weekend studying the Tennessee River, and proposed to Tammy Becker that their barge tour the Tennessee River, reaching six cities in three states from Knoxville, TN and ending in Paducah, KY, where the Tennessee River ends as it feeds into the Ohio River.

Via e-mail, Tammy said she loved the idea. Kathleen reached out to Christi Branscom, then City of Knoxville Deputy Mayor and COO, by Sunday evening that same weekend, she had an email back from Christi: “I love it! What’s it going to take to make this happen?”

2014 - planning the tour

Kathleen and Christi were soon meeting with Knoxville’s Mayor Madeline Rogero, who agreed that this project should move forward. She agreed that, if the project took off, she would reach out to mayors of other cities along the way to ask them to get on board. Soon, Tammy Becker was visiting Knoxville and toured Fort Loudoun Lake (the reservoir at the headwaters of the Tennessee River), and delivered bad news to Kathleen and Christi at a lunch meeting immediately following: the Tennessee River was too clean to bring their barge down for a cleanup. Christi, who had grown up boating on Fort Loudoun Lake, disagreed. “Our river needs this,” she said to Tammy. “What’s it going to take to get you here?” And so, the Tennessee River Tour planning began!

2015 - the tennessee river tour

The national nonprofit, Living Lands & Waters held a first-of-its-kind Tennessee River Tour in which they traveled with their barge from East Moline, IL to Knoxville, Tenn. From there, they traveled with their barge hosting river cleanups and touring six cities within three states. Along the way, 64 events including river cleanups, educational workshops, press conferences, and tree plantings were held and engaged 2,303 people in two months! A total of 18,825 lbs. of trash were removed along the way and collected on the front of the barge as the tour continued, raising awareness about litter in our waterways.

The tour was sponsored by TVA who gave $150,000, Keep Tennessee Beautiful who gave $50,000 through funds from the Tennessee Dept. of Transportation, and the City of Knoxville’s ‘Tennessee River Tour Committee’ who raised $40,000.

At the end of the tour, Chad sat down with TVA and Keep Tennessee Beautiful and said, “This is the most beautiful river I’ve ever been on in my career. You cannot let this be a one-time campaign.”

It was with this challenge that TVA and Keep Tennessee Beautiful realized a nonprofit needed to be formed to do similar work on the Tennessee River year-round. Keep Tennessee Beautiful Executive Director Missy Marshall suggested naming the nonprofit “Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful,” which would make it the 1st Keep America Beautiful affiliate in the nation to focus solely on a river!

2016 - ‘Keep the Tennessee River beautiful’ begins

TVA and Keep Tennessee Beautiful held true to their plan. Approximately one year after the Tennessee River Tour had taken place, Laura Howard had been hired to lead the project. Living Lands & Waters agreed to help guide Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful so that it could grow to become successful and thriving. TVA and Keep Tennessee Beautiful funded the project and, for the next three years, four cleanups were held a year with Living Lands & Waters traveling down with their five 30-foot work boats to host river cleanups for Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful!

2018 - it all becomes official

Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful became a 501c3 nonprofit
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful officially becomes a Keep America Beautiful affiliate
At the request of TVA, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful launched ‘Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month’ a campaign held every October to encourage a month-long effort to do Tennessee River watershed-wide cleanups. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam attended the kickoff cleanup to launch the initiative.
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful launches its Adopt a River Mile program partnered with Living Lands & Waters who provides Adopt a River Mile signs to every adoptee
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful had its first boat built: A 25-foot metal work boat that would later be named The Tennessee.

2019 - Officially in the water

In January 2019, Kathleen Gibi was hired as Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful’s Executive Director.
In March 2019, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful launched the Tennessee River Grand Slam Cleanup Series as the nonprofit’s participation in the “Great American Cleanup,” an annual campaign held nationwide by Keep America Beautiful.
In April 2019, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful received its first corporate sponsorship from Yamaha Rightwaters
In June 2019, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful launched its Cigarette Litter Prevention and Recycling program thanks to donations from Keep America Beautiful as well as helpful funding from TVA and TDOT
In July 2019, The Tennessee took its maiden voyage with KTnRB board members at the nonprofit’s first-ever board retreat

2020 - Fleet and staff expansion

Through a grant from The Conservation Fund, Volkswagen, and TVA, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful purchased its 1st truck, hired its 1st AmeriCorps member, and launched the Cherokee National Forest River Cleanup Series.
During COVID quarantine, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful launched its Pledge4Rivers program

2021 - GETTING SERIOUS WITH CLEANUPS

Chickamauga Lake Cleanup Weekend launched in collaboration with iSustain
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful sees its biggest cleanup year with over 150,000 lbs. of trash removed

2022 - FLEET EXPANSION

‘Earth Day Awareness Week’ launched with TDOT employees participating in Tennessee River cleanups
2nd boat purchased, a 26-foot work boat named The Holston
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful launched the first-of-its-kind Electric Litter Skimmer program thanks to grants from Keep America Beautiful and TDOT, making the Tennessee River the largest network of Seabin devices on any river system in the world

2023 - a full-time crew and hq

Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful hires its first Programs Coordinator, bringing the full-time staff count up to two!
Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful moves into its first-ever headquarters at Duncan Boat Dock
1st time Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful volunteers reach milestone of removing 200,000 lbs. of trash in one year
Dollywood becomes 1st theme park in the world to recycle plastic from every cigarette butt collected on its property through Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful Cigarette Litter Prevention and Recycling program (thanks to a grant from Keep America Beautiful)

2024 - fleet expansion and partnership investment

Second truck purchased to haul The Holston
Clayton Homes Building Group announces its three-year sponsorship of Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful’s goal to remove 200,000 lbs. of trash a year
The Oak Ridge Power Squadron gives Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful the largest private donation received to date.

2025 - year of the millions and the mussels

Crew expands to three full-time positions with the addition of Education & Outreach Coordinator position
Systematic cleanup ensues following the aftermath of Hurricane Helene
In May 2025, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful launched the first-ever Tennessee River Mussel Movement Initiative, which includes Adopt a Mussel, the Tennessee River Watershed Mussel Fest, an inventory program of mussel shells found at cleanups, education sessions in classrooms, and an academic effort to communicate the economic value of freshwater mussels. The initiative is made possible through a TDOT sponsorship and advisement from the University of Tennessee professors and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency naturalists.
In August 2025, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful hosted its first-ever fundraiser event called Rappelling for the Rivers
In October 2025, Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful celebrated the 10-year anniversary since the 2015 Tennessee River Tour
In October 2025, volunteers helped Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful reach the milestone of 1 million lbs. of trash removed since the first boat was put in the water in 2019.
In December 2025, partners in the Cigarette Litter Prevention & Recycling program helped Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful reach the milestone of the plastic recycled from 1 million cigarette butts
Recap video of the year can be viewed HERE.

2026 - seeking expansion

Two positions created and hired: a full-time Development Coordinator and a Recycling Coordinator position through the Knox CAC AmeriCorps program