Meet Our Community: Alie Victorine

As part of our seasonal spotlight series and Earth Day, we’re celebrating our incredible staff, partners, and volunteers who help make the work of Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful (KCCB) possible. In our Earth Day Blog, we talk about the ‘Ripple Effect’ and how all it takes is one person to inspire many to make a change in their community. Today, we’re excited to introduce Alie, whose dedication has played an important role in empowering our community.

Role: Volunteer cleanup team lead, Coyote Meadows team lead, and BioBlitz docent

With KCCB: 10 Years!

Fun Facts 🌟

• Happy place: Hellyer County Park 🏞️ 

• Unusual creek sightings: Mannequin Head 🌱🌊

• Favorite hobbies: Gardening, Bird Watching, Pokémon Go 🥾🐦🪴

• Favorite place to eat: Mexico Lindo on Foxworthy 😋

• Favorite color: Pink 🌈

When we were talking about unusual creek sightings, Alie laughed and said, “We kept placing it [the mannequin head] around, sticking it out of the bags and hiding it so it would freak people out. It was great.”

How it All Started 🌱

Alie has been living along Coyote Creek for over 44 years with her husband, Bruce. She calls it her “big backyard”. She is heavily involved in the community with the neighborhood association, Seven Trees Neighborhood Association, the D7 leadership group, and is also the lead for the Coyote Meadows Coalition, a group of community members and organizations that they plan to turn into an open urban space.  The land formerly had a large homeless encampment and includes the Story Road Landfill.

While out on one of their usual walks along Coyote Creek, Bruce and Alie came across a group of volunteers doing a creek cleanup. Before they knew it, they had signed up for two or three more cleanups, and then they became team leaders.

Alie with her husband Bruce on an extraordinary cleanup day

Alie expressed that “we hated seeing the trash and litter there. And it was something that we felt we could do to not only improve our neighborhood, but take care of the nature that we both love so much and the creek.”

Impact on the Community 🌎

For Alie, one of the most motivating parts of volunteering with KCCB is the knowledge that the things they do are going to have a major impact not just on that localized area, but on the watershed and the Bay.

Alie's slogan that's a button

That “If you’re in a watershed, and you’ve got litter, it’s not just staying in that one place; it is going to the Bay. In fact, I came up with the slogan ‘what you pick up today, won’t make it to the Bay.’” The impact on the community was especially apparent to Alie when the creek was being devastated by homeless encampments as well as the 2017 Coyote Creek flood in the Bay Area. She said, “there was a moment where I sat at the creek with a skimmer picking up little tiny pieces of styrofoam”. It’s not just the big stuff, like mattresses that need to be cleaned, but the little things that can be even more harmful to our wildlife and environment. 

Some major inspiration for Alie and her community is noticing that they can make a difference in the creek and the wider community. Organizations like KCCB allow people to become empowered and adopt leadership skills to organize their own efforts to educate and make change.

There was a time when Alie remembered there were cars abandoned and rusting, where they had to go back every other month to slowly clear it. Something significant happened; this slow process of taking care of this space made a difference even without the city abating homeless encampments. Alie noticed something powerful happening.

“It has empowered our neighborhood to realize that they don’t have to live in trash, so now our neighborhood is cleaner, and our creek is cleaner. With perseverance, you can change things.”  

Looking Ahead: The Future of KCCB ☀️🌳

For Alie, the work she does with KCCB and her neighborhood has always been about more than just cleanup events and BioBlitzes.

It’s learning that it might start local, but it impacts everything. It’s noticing that anyone can make a difference, and persistence creates meaningful change.

Alie said that “getting involved gives you a great sense of satisfaction that you’ve done something, a small part, but very much that you have done good for the world that day.”

The best part of working with this community for Alie has been the volunteers, the employees, and the staff of KCCB. She especially appreciates working with the kids, who have never really climbed down in river banks or done cleanups before. This isn’t just impacting the neighborhood and environment; it’s creating future generations who are stewards of the environment.

She said, “We’ve watched some kids who were afraid to touch anything become regular volunteers, and that’s really, really exciting.”

Final Thoughts ✨

After years of volunteering, Alie has a powerful perspective to contribute to this work.

“Being in the watersheds and creeks affects so many places, from the animals, quality of water, bird life, and the bay. So if you spend a few hours cleaning up in an area, you’re affecting a much broader area than you realize.”

Alie’s wisdom to share is that small contributions can create big change, and enough hands can significantly impact the entire community. You just have to try.