Choosing Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful For My Arrupe Project

On a cool weekend morning, I wake up and step outside. Today is my first volunteer event with Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful. It feels early for a college student used to staying up late, but at the same time, it's rewarding to get a start on the day. I’m attending a trash clean up, feeling both excited and hesitant to pick up garbage with people I have never met. As I drive to Coyote Creek, I wonder if the trails will be muddy, who I’m going to meet, and if I’m going to have to wade in the creek to haul out a tire or some other absurd object.

Arriving at the meeting spot, I’m greeted by event coordinators and clean up leaders and directed to pick up my gloves, a volunteer vest, and a trash bag. While waiting around for instructions, I strike a conversation with another volunteer, a special education teacher at a San Jose middle school. The trash clean up was also his first KCCB event. I asked him about his work as a teacher and he told me it can be difficult at times and exhausting at the end of the day, but he knows the impact on the students is worth every second. I told him I was impressed that he took the time out of his weekend to wake up early on a Saturday and pick up trash by the creek to which he responded, “I enjoy being involved with organizations that bring good to my community.” Learning he spends all week teaching and still showed up early on a Saturday to pick up trash made it pretty clear that I didn’t have much of an excuse to feel tired.

Making conversation with other volunteers, I realized everyone was here because they are dedicated to supporting the natural environment of the Bay Area community. Whether it was an engineer, student, or a young family showing their children the importance of volunteer work, everyone was motivated to contribute. Walking around the clean up area, I was shocked to see how much trash was simply dumped within the park. Dozens of rusted food cans lined the hills, metal scraps were caked in the dirt, and plywood was buried feet beneath layers of debris. It made me think about why this is such a common scene in natural community environments and about the efforts of those who attempt to sustain them. One of the leaders explained that locations like the one we were in required annual clean ups due to the amount of litter and illegal dumping that takes place.

Picking up batteries, screws, and CDs in every nook of the brush, my trash bag begins to get heavy and the collection pile of large items that can’t fit in the bags grows into a sizable mound. I thought to myself, “How did anyone even get a whole mattress out here?” It’s satisfying to watch the area transform in such a short amount of time. From endless amounts of plastic and rusted metal objects, the park began to look surprisingly natural once again. What surprises me even more is the work ethic of the volunteers I was working beside. Not a single person was complaining about walking around in garbage– everyone knew they were there to accomplish the goal of restoring this community park.

Hauling the trash bags up to the collection area, a conga line formed to pass along up the steep hill. Some of the volunteers stop to smile and take a picture; it’s fun to see everyone work in tandem to finish the job. At the top of the hill, I tossed what felt like an endless amount of bags next to the chainlink fence until cheers broke out when the last remaining pieces of debris were cleared. Needless to say everyone was a bit exhausted, but ever so proud of the job we all did.

Looking at the hundreds of trash bags that had accumulated, I was impressed with the effort put in by everyone. The fruits of our labor could be seen in a healthier-looking park and heard in the high-fives exchanged between volunteers. I realized that even a few hours of effort from a group of volunteers can make a visible difference in a place that belongs to the whole community. I also understood that I was part of an organization that was doing something special in the Bay Area. I left with a satisfaction of my contribution to the cause, excited to take on my next adventure with Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful.