How Have Volunteers Felt About their Work in Coyote Creek in Recent Months?

It's been quite a busy year for the Creek. The City of San José has been more proactive about clearing the homeless encampments that people often see during our cleanups. Encampments mean many things, but for our clean-up volunteers, it usually means more trash to pick up. There has been much discussion regarding how the city conducts these abatements and their impact on the Creek itself, so I decided to interview some volunteers who have spent many cleanups with us to get their perspective on the state of the Creek and on the roles of cleanups.

I wanted to know what people, like Jennifer Koga, felt about their work in the Creek and what her impact has been. Additionally, I wanted to know how she felt about the City's recent efforts to clear the creeks of homeless encampments. As someone who has been to many of our events, Jennifer has had a lot of time to think about her impact on the Creek via our cleanups. She often sees a vast improvement in each site after a cleanup, but is a little disappointed to see it return to its state after a few months. The way she describes it makes me think about cleaning a room: you spend a day cleaning it, and it looks good right after, but give it a few months with no consistent cleaning, and it looks like a mess!

Jennifer has attended many of our events, such as our Weeding for Wildlife events with SFBBO, where she volunteers with her husband often.

Jennifer has a point since a cleanup's value depends on more factors than a day's hard work. Whether through illegal dumping or people not picking up trash that they drop, the site can go back to its sad state. Perhaps the real question is, why do we continue doing all this despite knowing that trash returns? Why continue to do these events, knowing full well that the systemic problem persists? While trash might continue to return, Jennifer has noted that wildlife is slowly making a comeback in sight of sustained cleanups: "I actually think that having [homeless] not be here, continue to leave garbage and other things around the Creek has definitely improved the site." Although trash will continue to be a problem, cleanups do have more lasting benefits to the wildlife in both the short and long term.

Returning to the interview with Jennifer, she expressed support for the recent abatements as they decreased the amount of trash found far after a cleanup. As someone who has acted on the ground and has seen the effects of trash in person many times, Jennifer appreciates when the city decides to be more active in the Creek. We also discussed how the presence of wildlife has improved quickly, with less trash around. Nature finds a way, but it helps when fewer obstacles are blocking its flourishing!

Interviewing Jennifer offered some good insight into what some volunteers feel about their service and the city's actions, but my next interview with a young man named Kevin Tran gave me a more in-depth discussion about societal problems surrounding the Creek.

Having first joined us when he was in high school, Kevin, now part of the San Jose Conservation Corps, occasionally stops by to give us a hand. Similar to Jennifer, he describes the work in the Creek as an "exercise in futility", since trash will always come back after cleanups. However, he sees great value in what we do since it gives newcomers a good look at the trash conditions and how it's harmful to the Creek. He made sure to emphasize the trash and not the homeless people, since according to him, society as a whole is a consumerist one, and our need to consume leads to the waste that is encountered in the Creek. Additionally, Kevin said that producers who make products to be wasted and not fully recycled should also hold some of the blame for this systemic problem.

Kevin is a hard worker at the cleanups. Once you get to know him, he's really a man with valuable insight from a perspective on the ground level!

In terms of the progress, Kevin noted that the top of the bank around the Creek was relatively cleaner due to our consistent and hard work, while the Creek itself was the same. On the question of why he keeps coming back, Kevin said that he returns to keep chipping at the problem. He made it a point to say that without volunteers, cleanups would not get done, and the Creek would not improve. Kevin offered me great insight into what keeps bringing volunteers back and the value of dedicated regular volunteers who keep fighting the good fight.

To clarify what Kevin talked about regarding the exact spots where trash is usually collected, we sometimes do not clean directly in the Creek unless the water is temporarily gone. We focus on paths near it where trash might potentially fall into the Creek over time, a literal top-down process so to say.

We need people like Kevin and Jennifer who can continue to work based on underlying morals. They don't expect to solve the problem but know that what they do is part of the solution. As Kevin hinted, the real problem lies in society and our need to consume, which has led to waste being dumped into the Creek. Additionally, the wildlife is the one to suffer, and the toxic and dangerous trash that surrounds their habitat makes it harder to flourish, as noted by Jennifer. In that light, cleanups might not be a perfect solution, but they do help give nature a respite —a respite that might be worth the work of dedicated people who continue working even when the problem seems bigger than they are.