By Wendy Sigmund
This year will be the 36 annual River and Road Clean up organized by the Valley Women’s Club, Environmental committee. The event coincides with the international Coast Cleanup day and is in conjunction with the Save Our Shores organization in Santa Cruz.
River and Road Cleanup has brought out community members to join together and get the litter out of the rivers and creeks as well as the roadways. This fun and festive event helps to spread the message of river to sea stewardship.
Here in the mountains our creeks and rivers are a significant part of our lives. Joining community members to clean and protect these water sources are great traditions to create.
Al Haynes began this event in October 1986. Al was on the SLV Water district board when he petitioned and received the first grant to launch this project. He contacted Nancy Macy of the Valley Women’s Club for volunteers. The next year the VWC took over the operation and Nancy has been running it ever since.
“The River & Road Clean Up provides us all with a truly “feel-good” effort to protect the health of the waterways of the Watershed. All ages are encouraged to participate. Make it an annual event! “ says Nancy Macy about this year’s event.
The first few years of the Cleanup literally tons of trash was pulled out of the watershed. It is a testament of people developing stewardship that there is not as much trash these days. Or is it that there are not the same amount of volunteers?
It is time to change that. We all love living in this community and we are all in this together so bring out your tools and gloves, roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work.
There are a couple of ways you can help. You can become a site leader. There are two zoom training meetings on August 30 and 31st from 6:00 until 8:00 pm. Or there is showing up and getting to work under the site leader’s direction. Please bring your own tools and gloves. There will be a receptacle for the trash and bags to collect it.
The trash removed from the waterways and roads will be weighed and the data will be used for policy creation and possible funding.
There will be three starting sites here around the valley. Show up and sign in to get your bags and a snack from one of three sites, and bring back the trash collected (note: there is no piece of trash too big or too small) for proper recycling or disposal:
- Boulder Creek, behind The Mat – Boulder Creek Laundry at 12890 Hwy 9
- Ben Lomond, at the corner of Hwy 9 at Fillmore
- Felton, at the Covered Bridge County Park
Also, special help is needed as Captains, if you are the leader type. Captains will set up at 8:30 am and “Captain” these three sites! A Site Captain will be asked to: take the Save our Shores training. Site captains must attend one of the two virtual training sessions SOS will host. Site captain training sessions will be held on Zoom: Tuesday, August 30, and Wednesday, August 31, from 6 pm–8 pm. You will be asked to bring the supplies for SOS to the location. Then you will check in or sign in the volunteers who show up, and provide them with safety and data collection instruction. At the end of the event, you will return the supplies to SOS aligned with the waivers and the data. If you need help gathering the supplies, reach out to Nancy Macy.
I hope you all show up with your families to this great event. It is a lot of fun and truly makes a positive impact on the environment as well as teaching the next generation the importance of stewardship. I’ll see you there!
