Virginia City in the running for clean-up by volunteers

Virginia City may get a great big batch of elbow grease if the historic locale is chosen as the site of a clean up effort by a national non-profit tourism group.

In recent years, Tourism Cares for Tomorrow has rousted a cadre of about 300 employees in the tourism industry travel agents, tour guides and airline staff who volunteer time to clean up a landmark area.

The volunteer group first went forth in 2003 to work on Ellis Island. In 2004 they went to New Orleans, in 2005 to Mount Vernon and this spring, over 330 volunteers donated 5,000 hours of labor to help restore the hurricane-ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast.

"Virginia City has a good chance of the 2007 project," says Susan Sutton, director of the Virginia City Department of Tourism.

"Our cemetery is falling apart," says Cory Wood, administrative assistant at the Virginia City tourist department. "And people say it's one of the most beautiful in the nation."

To determine the next project site, Bruce Beckham, executive director of Tourism Cares for Tomorrow, visited Virginia City last week to tour its claims to fame.

One reason Virginia City is in the running, says Beckham, is because it's in the West; the previous projects have all been east of the Mississippi.

"We choose projects that have an 'over the shoulder' potential," he says. That is, when people look back at the end of a day's labor, they can see how they've made a difference. After the day's work, Beckham adds, the volunteers will turn into tourists themselves to see the region.

Larry Friedman, rural program manager at the Nevada Commission on Tourism, took the lead to get Virginia City nominated, says Chris Chrystal, communications and media manager at the agency. Friedman had joined the volunteer effort in Mississippi this spring.

"The tourism industry is mobilizing to give back," says Beckham. Tourism Cares for Tomorrow expects to choose a work site for 2007 within the next few months.