PennDOT offers a wide variety of beautification programs in a concerted effort to reduce the costs of removing unsightly litter from Pennsylvania's state-maintained roadways.
How to Get Involved
Contact your local PennDOT County Maintenance Office. An Adopt A Highway Coordinator or Adopt and Beautify Roadside Specialist will assist you on the terms of the program and help you select a two-mile stretch of state-maintained road to adopt or an area to beautify.
Our Highway Beautification Programs
Volunteers beautify roadsides two miles at a time. You or your civic or volunteer group sign a two-year agreement to pick up litter at least two times a year along a state highway right of way. In return, PennDOT posts recognition signs along the adopted roadway giving you or your group full credit for your efforts.
Participation Requirements & PennDOT Support
- Age Requirements: Participants must be 8 years of age or older. There must be at least one adult (18 years of age or older) per eight minors (17 years of age or younger). Minors must have parental permission.
- Safety First: Each participant is required to view online safety videos before acceptance into, and participation in the program.
- PennDOT will provide safety vests, trash bags, work gloves, and other equipment as required by your PennDOT representative.
- PennDOT will notify Pennsylvania State Police of all scheduled events for your safety.
- PennDOT will pick up the bagged litter from the roadside.
Get Started
Resources
The Adopt & Beautify (A&B) program provides opportunities for local citizens and community organizations to beautify sites they select and design for the purposes of enhancing the beauty of the roadside, giving a positive first impression, providing habitat for native pollinators, and exhibiting community pride. Volunteers expand upon PennDOT's planting efforts along our state-maintained roadways under a minimum two-year commitment. In return, PennDOT places a sign recognizing the group for its efforts.
Keystone Pollinator Habitat (KPH)
Decreasing pollinator (butterfly and bee) populations have raised public awareness and interest in pollinator conservation. Transportation rights of way can provide habitat for these species. The KPH Program is an adaptation of A&B that provides an opportunity for concerned citizens to plant pollinator habitats.
Safety First: Each participant is required to view online safety videos before acceptance into, and participation in, the A&B or KPH Beautification programs.
Get Started
- Apply to Adopt and Beautify (Be sure to check the box that states “Adopt and Beautify” when filling out the form.)
Forms & Resources
- Adopt and Beautify Program Information (PDF)
- Adopt and Beautify Program Agreement (PDF)
- Adopt and Beautify Fact Sheet (PDF)
- Roadside Beautification Manual (PDF)
- Pollinator Habitat Plan
- PennDOT One Map
- Pollinator Meadow Job Sheet (PDF)
- Snetsinger Butterfly Garden Sample Plans and Plant Lists
- Interactive Hardiness Zone Map
- Landscaping with Native Plants
- Invasive Plants in Pennsylvania
- Beautification Sign (PDF)
- Contacts
The Sponsor A Highway program involves businesses and interested parties securing agreements with Adopt A Highway Maintenance Corp. or Adopt A Highway Litter Removal Service of America. These vendors use their skilled maintenance forces to perform roadside litter removal eight times per year on sponsored roadways. Sponsors receive acknowledgement signs on their selected roadway.
Find more information on becoming a highway sponsor by visiting the vendors' websites at Adopt A Highway Maintenance Corp or Adopt A Highway Litter Removal Service of America Inc.
Click here to view our valued sponsors.
Adult Litter Brigades are administered by County Magistrates through County Probation Offices. Offenders (DUI, DWI, etc.) receive community service sentencing as part of their adjudication. PennDOT provides gloves, bags, and vests. This is not a reimbursable event.
Find your local contact to learn more.