April 7 - The Cleanup in These Foolish Things

Yesterday (Saturday) was my Monthly Volunteer Day. I’ve said it in other entries that I’ve decided to volunteer at least once a month. I haven’t given myself any kind of restrictions or guidelines - just to give some of my time doing or being around something that I like.

So yesterday I did a clean-up at one of our local wildlife preserves. I am simply in love with the fact that this city has so many natural spaces and I wanted to give back by helping clean up one of them.

I found an organization that supports our local parks online (via Google search) and noted that they were doing a cleanup along a stretch of a big river that cuts through the city.

The instructions said to meet UNDER a certain highway, which felt a little sketchy to me…and it was! Because the pin that was dropped for the directions led me through a swirl of spaghetti junction highway mess that I wasn’t familiar with. But that’s why I left early. Always Start Early is my mantra for these things, and it never fails because there’s always something to navigate!

Anyway, finally worked my way around, down some exits and questionable twists and turns and found myself in a parking lot under a mass of converging highway bridges.

Got myself situated and found the truck with the name of the organization on it and people who looked like fellow volunteers started trickling over to the truck. There were 50 people signed up to clean this area, and my guess is about 30 showed up. So not a bad group at all considering it was a cool, gloomy morning - but that made it perfect for trash pickin’!

The area where we worked was actually not part of the trail or well-groomed park system, but it was a much more wild nature preserve. That means it’s less traveled system, but also much more “secret” so that maybe some nefarious things could happen.

All of the volunteers grabbed big Home Depot buckets (you know the ones - big and orange). And gloves. And a “grabber”…those long-handled trash picker uppers and sort of scattered to go pick up whatever we could find.

But we were also told to note that there are some unhoused people living in these parts and that if we see things that feel like “property” to just leave them. There are a LOT of these people living in the parks, green spaces, and reserves around here. It’s a warmer climate and camping or living on the streets is easier here I guess. I’ve come across a lot of camps in the park next to my apartment and I leave them alone and they leave me alone. It’s the same situation here. Only maybe moreso. Because this place was not a well-groomed park like some of the other places I’ve been to (like my local part), but it was a nature preserve, so mostly wild and not super maintained.

I started my trash picking by myself, sort of branching off when the whole group scattered. I found a makeshift campfire site and picked up the bottles and food containers around it and took my haul back to the truck where there were big trash bags to dump our Home Depot bucketfuls. But I quickly discovered that in situations like this one, there are strengths in small groups of people because…there was a LOT to pick up. Some of it was bulky, heavy and cumbersome.

And I soon found two girls who I’d casually chatted with before we set off. They let me into their little twosome and soon we were finding all kinds of things and hauling them out.

At a glance, this nature preserve was nearly pristine and untouched. If I was just walking on the trail, I’d think this was a beautiful, lush green space full of trees and creatures leading down to a gently flowing river. But it only took a little bit of effort to sort of comb through the brush in any direction to find these nests full of trash, debris, blankets, tarps, food containers…and lots and lots of drug paraphernalia. We found the requisite beer bottles, cans and plastic cups, of course. But we also found crack pipes, syringes, and other items galore. I don’t even know what half the shit was, but it got to a point where it was suuuuper creepy and felt very dark.

I’m very glad I was doing this in a group and not by myself. At one point, a man came out from…not even sure where…and walked down the path, shoeless, dirty, and with a cigarette tucked between two fingers. I’m sure he was not very happy with a group of 30 people tromping through his territory, but he didn’t say a word and just kept walking.

My heart breaks for the unhoused. I know it’s a mental illness problem because there are many, many resources out there to help these people. Sometimes I worry-think about what would happen if I were in that situation. Where would I go? What would I do? Would I try to live in the woods?

But we had a job to do yesterday, and we kept going, picking up as much of the trash, debris, old rotten clothing, pillows and blankets as we could and carrying it or rolling it out in big wagons as we could. I don’t even think we scratched the surface, but I know we made a big dent.

We filled two truck beds full of trash in just one morning. There’s sooooo much more volunteer work to be done! I’d like to make park cleaning or supporting the parks one of my regular events.

After we were done I knew I wanted to clear my head. So I went to another part of the city trail system and took a walk into several more parks. It turned into such a beautiful day and I’m so glad I spent my morning giving back to nature.

xo,
GS