MoDOT officially launched Sponsor-A-Highway on Sept. 17 in Kansas City. Sponsor-A-Highway, a sister program to Adopt-A-Highway, offers one more way to help clean up Missouri.

MoDOT Director Pete Rahn joined with representatives from Adopt-A-Highway Litter Removal Services of America, Inc., (AAHLRSA) to explain the importance of Sponsor-A-Highway at the event. Each year, MoDOT spends more than $5 million on picking up litter. Sponsor-A-Highway will help to reduce this cost.

“The program does not cost MoDOT any money and will better serve Missourians by having cleaner and nicer-looking highways,” Director Pete Rahn said. "It allows MoDOT to use funds allocated for litter removal to improve Missouri roads."

MoDOT has contracted with AAHLRSA, one of the country’s largest litter-removal companies, to administer Missouri’s Sponsor-A-Highway program. AAHLRSA has facilitated the sponsorship of thousands of miles of highway in several states. Under this program, individuals, groups or businesses financially support the litter removal from a stretch of highway in the Kansas City and St. Louis regional areas. In return, the sponsor gets their name and logo on a Sponsor-A-Highway sign. Sponsored sections are cleaned at least once a month, or more frequently, if needed. All of this is done at no cost to MoDOT.

Several companies have already sponsored one-mile stretches of highway; some are sponsoring multiple miles of highway in their region. In the St. Louis area, Emerson was the first company to sponsor part of a highway. UHY, LLP currently is sponsoring the most sections, with three one-mile sections. Cherokee-Lamp Special Business Distrcit sponsors two miles and THF Chesterfield Development, LLC sponsors one. In the Kansas City area, the first company to sponsor a stretch of local highway is Blue Springs Ford. They are sponsoring two miles of highway.

Sponsors are recognized as an environmental supporter with civic pride and a sense of community responsibility. Sponsor-A-Highway does not replace Adopt-A-Highway. Instead, the two programs work together to make roads cleaner and safer.

For more information about Sponsor-A-Highway, contact Suzanne Cox at 800-831-0821 or visit www.adoptahighway.net.