Meet Our Community: Tim Dobbins

Paige Combs - KCCB
3 hours ago
3 min read

As part of our seasonal spotlight series, we’re celebrating our incredible employees, 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 Tim, our dedicated cleanup volunteer who beautifies the creek, finds purpose in the community, and is deeply attuned to the stories our landscapes tell us.

Role: Cleanup Volunteer

With KCCB: 7-8 years!

Fun Facts 🌟

Happy place: Half Moon Bay 🏞️
Unusual creek sightings: Creeks contain everything we need - it’s a garden 🌊
Favorite hobbies: Hiking 🥾
Favorite food to eat: Whatever his wife is cooking 😋
Favorite color: Any shade of green 🌈

When I asked Tim about his favorite California park, he said, “Half Moon Bay, which is about 50 miles from here, and I’ve worked with the state parks foundation weeding and putting in native plants. I felt we’ve lost the war trying to bring it back to its original state, but little by little, month after month…year after year we got it done.”

How it All Started 🌱

Tim retired as an assistant school teacher for 26 years and as a waiter for 50 years. When he retired, one of his major goals was continuing to be active. He wanted to find ways to get outside and exercise, and that’s when he found Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful.

Tim said he always liked cleaning the most. “When I was very young, we had a creek in back of our house, and it was very calm, shallow, and about 4 inches deep most of the time. There were weeping willow trees over it, and that’s where I went to get away from my family and school. It was the most peaceful place,” he said.

Impact on the Community 🌎

Tim said that it’s not just the work; it’s the people he comes back for. The team of people at KCCB - Deb, Efren, Annette, and Colter were all folks he identified that he comes back to be around. Many students might join in for the community service hours, but they get introduced to so much more simply by engaging in these cleanup events.

Tim described, “You never step in the same creek twice. Every time it’s new. The water flowing over your boots has never been there before, and that brings you things. I like to tell high school kids, if they get a little bored, make up a story about what you see. It could be a toy, a teddy bear, and they like doing that.”

For Tim and other volunteers, many of the reasons they find joy around the creek include the deep commitment and purpose they develop caring for the landscape around them. It’s not just an abstract concept that someone is imagining, but it’s the process of physically improving something to make it better one day at a time.

Tim said, “At the end of the day, after two or three hours, you have 50 bags of trash; you can actually see the work you’ve been doing; it’s not just in your mind. So that’s always fulfilling… it keeps bringing me back.”

Looking Ahead: The Future of KCCB ☀️🌳

What Tim is most excited about thinking of the future is improving conditions for the unhoused population and addressing barriers with the homeless encampments, especially around the creeks and watershed. Additionally, he dreams of one day floating down the creek in his kayak, getting the full 64-mile-long view of Coyote Creek.

He said, “What I would like to do is get a kayak and go all the way down. Wear a GoPro on my chest and have it broadcast back to headquarters…everybody could see all 64 miles, and it’s natural beauty.”

Final Thoughts ✨

We find purpose and connection by working with each other. Tim highlighted how he has become a steward of the creek next door to him, and is protecting more spaces since his involvement with KCCB.

“I also adopted Permanente Creek, which is very near my house. I cleaned Stevens Creek… I volunteer with the city of Mountain View, and we are trying to maintain the burrowing owls. We have lots of monarch butterflies and plant a lot of milkweed,” he said.

Tim shows how working with KCCB opens doors to so many avenues and opportunities. All it takes is one day to come out and give it a try.