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BY NIC MILLER
STAR STAFF
nic.miller@elizabethton.com

Simon and Melinda Maddock believe in giving back, both to the community and to the Keep Carter County Beautiful efforts.

The couple met with the KCCB committee to talk about a corporate grant program that could provide financial resources to the local effort. The Maddocks are employees of Microsoft, which offers employees a volunteer match program with local organizations.

“The premise of this program is for Microsoft to be able to provide funds to areas in which their employees reside,” Melinda Maddock said. “This means that any time we do volunteer work that has anything to do with Keep Carter County Beautiful, Microsoft will match that time and pay $25 per hour to the organization.”

The couple have already made use of the program through their efforts to remove tires from the Watauga River near their property.

“Another part of this program is that if we were to make any monetary donation to you guys, Microsoft would come and match that donation dollar for dollar,” she said.

Removing tires from the river is a particular concern for the Keep Carter County Beautiful Committee and the Maddocks. The committee plans to set a date in December to remove all of the tires from the Watauga River and dispose of them in the correct way.

More information on the river cleanup will come during the next Keep Carter County Beautiful board meeting, at noon Nov. 11 in the Elizabethton Chamber of Commerce.