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Georgia’s organic agriculture community honored Savannah's Teri Schell at the 17th annual Georgia Organics conference this weekend, which brought over 1,000 attendees to Jekyll Island.

Schell received the Barbara Petit Pollinator Award, which honors an individual or organization for outstanding community leadership in Georgia’s sustainable farming and food movement.

• Teri Schell

As a founding member of the Forsyth Farmers' Market, Schell has been on the ground floor of the Savannah’s good food community, and as co-chair of the recently formed Savannah Chatham Food Policy Council, her passion and knowledge continue to grow that movement.

“She quietly and doggedly keeps all these pieces moving because of her passion for equality and lucky for folks in this room she uses her love of food as the framework for change,” said award presenter Kristin Russell, owner of The Sentient Bean coffeehouse.

This Saturday, March 1, residents can recycle their old TVs, computers and other electronics and help clean up a neighborhood during the kick off to the four-month-long Great Savannah Cleanup.

Events include:

9 a.m.: Great Savannah Cleanup Kickoff begins in Wells Park at 39th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Cuyler-Brownville. Residents from the neighborhood, along with volunteers from civic organizations, will help pick up trash, remove graffiti, weed and mulch trees. Residents can also receive a free health screening at the event.

10 a.m. to 2 p.m.: E-Recycling event held at 38th and MLK Boulevard. Sponsored by IMS Electronics, residents can recycle most home electronics, including computers, televisions, monitors, cell phones, fax machines, printers and small appliances.

The Great Savannah Cleanup runs from March 1 through June 30, and is sponsored by the City of Savannah and Keep Savannah Beautiful in coordination with the Great American Cleanup. During the Great Savannah Cleanup, residents and businesses throughout Savannah are encouraged to help organize their own neighborhood cleanups. If residents provide labor, the City will provide bags and gloves, then collect and dispose of the bags of trash.

To organize a neighborhood cleanup, contact Keep Savannah Beautiful Coordinator Nathaniel Glover at 651-1967.

The public is invited to join City of Savannah Citizen Office staff and members of City Council for a meeting regarding Project DeRenne at 6 p.m., Tuesday, February 25, in the Eckburg Auditorium, Goodman Hall, Savannah Technical College-Savannah Campus, 5717 White Bluff Road.

The public is encouraged to attend. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m.

Two of three stolen cars have been recovered and five men have been arrested after the burglary of a Southside automobile dealership late Monday night.

Officers were called to Volvo of Savannah on the 8300 block of White Bluff Road about 11:38 p.m. after employees discovered the burglary. Taken were three customer-owned vehicles.

Nakeem Squila Antonio Sams, 19, of the 1500 block of East 52nd Street, was apprehended quickly in a foot pursuit by Central Precinct Patrol officers after he wrecked a 1995 Buick LaCrosse on the 100 block of East 64th Street.

Sams first identified himself as someone else before officers determined his true identity. He has been charged with theft by receiving stolen property, obstruction and providing a false name/address to police.

Four other men were arrested in foot pursuits after officers of the Central and Southside Precincts followed a stolen Volvo carrying three of them to Seiler and Waters avenues about noon Tuesday. The fourth arrestee was outside the car talking to the occupants and fled as well.

Police also discovered three weapons and illegal drugs along the routes the suspects ran and drugs on one of the suspects.

Arrested were Dominic Manwell Williams, 21; Jaquease Lamont Dunn, 19; and Raheen Yusell Kirkland, 18. Williams was charged with obstruction, Dunn with theft by receiving stolen property and Kirkland with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of tools to commit a crime and obstruction.

Hakeen Anthony Kelsey, 20, was standing outside the car. Police found he was wanted on forgery charges and charged him with obstruction as well.

Still missing is a gray 2007 Audi Q7 SUV.

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., will host a town hall meeting in Savannah, Ga., on Friday, Feb. 21. Isakson will give a brief update from Washington, D.C., and then will spend the rest of the hour taking questions from constituents. The public is invited to attend.

The meeting is at Armstrong Atlantic State University's Armstrong Center, 13040 Abercorn Street from 2 —3 p.m. Feb. 21.

A young North Atlantic right whale is swimming easier after wildlife biologists cut away most of the 100-plus yards of heavy fishing rope the animal was dragging, says a Ga. Department of Natural Resources spokesman.

The disentanglement effort, much of which occurred 40 miles off Georgia’s Wolf Island Monday, "was relatively quick for the 4-year-old male whale, one of only about 450 remaining North Atlantic right whales."

Directed to the whale by an aerial survey team and a satellite tracking buoy monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), authorized staff with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission assessed the entanglement and threw a device called a cutting grapple across the trailing rope. Soon, the thick rope parted.

"But responders could not remove all of the rope because the whale avoided the boats and because the rope is likely entangled in its baleen," the filter-feeding structures inside the mouths of baleen whales.

Researchers hope the whale known as No. 4057 will shed the rest of the rope on its own. "Responders won’t know No. 4057’s fate until, or unless, he is seen again."

More than 80 percent of North Atlantic right whales bear scars from rope entanglements, and almost 60 percent have been entangled twice.

Members of the public are encouraged to join City Council and Mayor Edna Jackson as the Mayor gives the annual State of the City address at 7 pm. Tuesday, Feb. 18, in the 3rd Floor Ballroom of the Savannah Civic Center.

Two homeless men died Friday night when the pickup truck they were in flipped over into a water-filled canal under the Louisville Road entrance ramp to the US 17 highway overpass in west Savannah.

Joseph Benjaman Webb Jr., 46, and a 64-year-old companion died in the truck "that had turned over in several feet of water near a homeless camp beneath the overpass," a police spokesman says. The name of the other victim has been withheld pending family notification.

The two men were in a Toyota pickup truck that "Webb attempted to back down a rugged access path beside the canal when the wheels on the driver’s side of the truck rolled over the side of the canal and the truck overturned." The two men were unable to exit the vehicle.

Officers of the Major Accident Investigation Team continue to investigate and to search for family members of the second victim.

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One Savannah man has died and a second has been charged with felony murder after an early morning shooting in east Savannah today.

Fashad Kennedy, 20, of the 1300 block of East 60th Street was arrested by Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police detectives after the 2:14 a.m. shooting near the east end of Hawaii Avenue.

Rashaad Spann, 20, of the 100 block of Darling Street died at Memorial University Medical Center where he was transported after Islands Precinct officers responding to a shooting call found him wounded in a car.

Detectives continue to investigate.

Chatham Emergency Management Agency continues to monitor the approaching winter weather. The National Weather Service forecast up to 1.25 inches of rain for Chatham County today through tonight.

Tonight beginning at 10 p.m. through 7 a.m. Thursday, "the freeze line approaches west Chatham and it’s likely the Port Wentworth area will be affected. Bridges and overpasses in extreme northwest Chatham could freeze," a CEMA spokesperson says.

CEMA encourages residents to pay attention to changing weather conditions and put winter weather safety measures in place. Temperatures are expected to reach the low 40s on Thursday.