Three cheers for Plett’s ‘clean queen’
Plettenberg Bay's "clean queen" was honoured recently when the community she serves hosted a surprise party for her.
Alison Bryant founded the Keep Plett Clean campaign more than five years ago and has since spent most of her free time organising litter cleanups, sprucing up the town centre and even jumping in herself to rid the area of rubbish. She now employs two men who cycle about 18km every day cleaning up litter as they go, full-time.
"Alison has done so much for this town and given so much of herself that friends and residents decided it was time to honour her for her work," said one of the event's organisers Sheryl Dempster.
Many local businesses banded together to throw her a memorable bash at the The Whitehouse Venue in Plett on 27 September, three days before her birthday. "You can't hide anything from Alison, so it was quite tricky to keep the party under wraps, "Dempster said.
About 150 friends and other locals were invited to the event that kicked off at 18:00. By 19:00 Bryant's husband Nic took her there under the pretense of going to see a comedy show.
When she arrived she was greeted with beautiful song from the Murray High School choir, before the guests came through doors to greet her. "She was completely speechless," said Dempster.
Inside, the choir continued to sing while a slide show was shown in her honour. About 12 of her close friends came dressed in black, donning angel wings to symbolise how the community sees her as a "local angel".
The rest of the evening was a jolly affair enjoyed with good food served on the iconic blue Keep Plett Clean bins.
"We collected the bins across town without Alison knowing. Her husband told her they had likely been stolen, which she found quite upsetting – until she realised what they had been used for," Dempster quipped.
Bryant started the campaign in 2014 after she saw the town started to "look a bit shoddy". "There were weeds and litter everywhere… We need to attract people to our town which in turn creates jobs and keeps our economy going," Bryant said. "It started with a call on Facebook. I just appealed to people who wanted to do their part."
Since then Bryant, her volunteers and staff members have been monitoring the town, picking up litter and beautifying the area as they go along.
Dempster said the party was the brainchild of local businessman Duncan Brown from Kwikspar who is also the main sponsor of the campaign.