Volunteers clean up Springs Road area
Gloves, check. Trash bag, check. Garbage-grabber stick, check. A desire to beautify Vallejo, check.
On Saturday morning, roughly 40 Vallejo residents and families gathered in the Springstowne parking lot to fan out and tackle one of the town’s biggest complaints — trash and litter removal.
The “Give Litter The Boot!” event was co- sponsored by the Vallejo Rotary Club and The Hill church, in tandem with the City of Vallejo.
T he cleaners focused on Springs Road between Maple and Rollingwood drives and though everyone returned with bags full of debris, most everyone marveled that the street wasn’t as dirty as they had anticipated — perhaps good sign that Vallejoans are taking their town’s tidiness seriously
“The street looked clean!” laughed Jim Casper, former president of the Rotary Club. “But our work really made a difference.”
Jamie Wilson is a parishioner at The Hill and said that she came out to help because she wanted to “give back to the Lord, because he has done so much for me.”
And give back she did, because her sojourn brought her in contact with some things that most people wouldn’t enjoy coming into contact with on their Saturday morning — some pretty unmentionable.
“I did find a full bag of medication, though,” she said, and she
was thankful that it might be returned to its owner who might badly need it.
It wasn’t just adults out for the clean-up as 7-yearold friends Mattea and Trinity hopped up with full bags and a jaunty, cando attitude.
“We came with a
lot of
trash!” said Mattea, beaming about the haul. A glance in their bag revealed a hub cap, a boot, an empty vodka bottle, and lots of paper trash.
Members of the Vallejo Beautification Commission were also on hand. Brenda Coleman said that the strangest thing she found — and the hardest to pick up with a grabber — was one of those plastic dental floss tools that al
ways seem to be strewn in parking lots. The commission’s goal is to do just what Give Litter The Boot was accomplishing, she said, and members also advise the city possible ordinance changes that can facilitate a cleaner Vallejo.
Some of the most gratifying finds were piles of stuff obviously dumped out of cars, like old clothes, fast food bags, cigarette butts, and even cooking supplies. It’s these piles of trash that so many complain about on social media.
Vallejo resident and volunteer Kandi Blomquist also touted Vallejo Street Stewards, a grassroots
group that consists of representatives from various streets and neighborhoods that have taken trash-abatement by the horns and organized volunteers in each area to clear up litter on a regular basis.
“At least 100 streets have been adopted,” she said.
Members post before and after pictures of their hard work as a motivation tool.
The next Give Litter The Boot clean- up will take place on Saturday, Oct. 17 from 9 a.m. to noon at Lake Dalwygk, 457 5th St.
For questions or more information, email Shelee. Loughmiller@cityofvallejo. net.