The pickups have been hosted every month dating back years, but the effort Saturday presented by I Love A Clean San Diego was more special than most.
It wasn’t just the 70 or so people who volunteered their time to clear out trash and debris scattered across a neighborhood that wasn’t theirs. It was the shared commitment to help, to do something tangible to better a community badly damaged by last month’s flood.
“We feel very fortunate to be where we are in life and there are some who are not as fortunate, so we just want to help,” said Stephen Lamb, a retired teacher from La Mesa who was scooping up trash along Chollas Creek with his wife, Amy Bruning.
Throughout the neighborhood, earthmovers and other heavy equipment were parked along several streets where public works crews had come to clear out the creek bed — though too late to prevent the flooding.
Patches of mud still line sections of 40th Street, Boston Avenue and Beta Street, which suffered some of the worst damage. The steady sounds of circular saws and hammers punctuated the air as volunteers fanned out blocks in every direction.
About a 100 cleanup volunteers worked along the Chollas Creek bank and on street level in the Southcrest Community on Saturday, February 10, 2024, in San Diego, CA, to help cleanup after the flood on January 22nd.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
I Love A Clean San Diego is a nonprofit group that dates back to the 1950s. It was initially established to fight litter but has since expanded to promoting environmental awareness and zero-waste lifestyles.
Steve Morris, the I Love A Clean San Diego executive director, said his group selected the Southcrest neighborhood specifically due to the Jan. 22 flooding that destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes and apartments.
He said this month’s cleanup event drew two or three times the usual number of volunteers, who were given plastic buckets and told to steer clear of anything that looks dangerous, alive or on someone’s property.
“If it’s not natural or bolted down, the rains are going to wash it into the storm drain and it will eventually flow out into the ocean,” Morris said.
About a 100 cleanup volunteers worked along the Chollas Creek bank and on street level in the Southcrest Community on Saturday, February 10, 2024, in San Diego, CA, to help cleanup after the flood on January 22nd.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Aurora Camarena Huerta was among those who shopped up to help Saturday.
A business student who lives in nearby Chollas View, Huerta said her home‘s roof suffered some damage during the recent storms, but she was able to fend off most of the water lapping at her doorstep.
“We need to work together to keep our neighborhood clean,” she said. “I would like to do more, but I do what I can.”
Christine Cedeno traveled from Spring Valley to do what she could. Cedeno, who works as a caretaker, said she has long volunteered for I Love A Clean San Diego monthly cleanups, but this one was especially noteworthy.
“We need a healthy environment, right?” she said, five-gallon bucket in hand. “I wish everybody could pitch in and we could do it every week.”
Vicki Shepperd Chin was among the cleanup volunteers working along the Chollas Creek bank in the Southcrest Community on Saturday, February 10, 2024, in San Diego, CA.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Vicki Shepperd Chin is a retired nurse from Hillcrest. She had filled up her bucket within 20 or so minutes and was about to return to the staging area at the Southcrest Recreation Center for Round Two when she took a minute to digest what she was seeing.
“This just shows me how much damage was done,” Shepperd Chin said. “So much stuff just floated out of homes.”
I Love A Clean San Diego volunteer program coordinator Katie Felberg said all of the trash would be weighed before being separated between recyclables and non-recyclables and sent on its way.
The box score by the end of the morning was impressive. Felberg said the 68 volunteers raked in 1,590 pounds of trash and 68 pounds of recycling.
