EARTH DAY EVENT
DETAILS OF THE EVENT
A FIRST FOR VCC!
What a fun, great event!
This day started early because the VCC volunteers had to get to their stations along the boulevard by 7:30am - participants started arriving at 8am and we needed to be prepared for getting them registered and equipped.
The stations were spread out along the boulevard - Station 1 at Shepherd's Church Campus - Station 2 at Tampa with Tarzana Neighborhood Council tent - Station 3 at California Pizza Kitchen with Bob Blumenfield - Station 4 at Hayvenhurst with Jesse Gabriel and Nithya Raman - Station 5 at Kester with Notre Dame - and Station 6 at Whitsett with VCC.
Our amazing volunteers were there to work with the various groups to organize getting people assigned to their streets, issuing equipment - brooms, gloves, dustpans, grabbers and bags - instructions for leaving the bags on the street and how we want the area cleaned - and making sure that they know this should be a fun event.
The participants were divided into teams of 3-4 people per each side of the street (north and south of the boulevard) and covering all the streets. We had so many volunteers that we also had them cover the major side streets like Kester, Winnetka, Tampa, etc. so that everyone who showed up would be able to participate whether or not whether they were preregistered.
The clean up was for a 2 hour period - 8:30-10:30am - and then the participants returned to the station to return their equipment and also tell us how many bags were left on the boulevard. Everyone reported that they had a blast! And that was the goal - have some fun and make a difference!
It was so cool to see the safety green T-shirts that said "We Volunteers Pick Up Trash" along the boulevard. Channel 4 NBC News covered the event along with the Daily News and Spectrum News - and of course our friend, Mark Hovater and his drone friend!
Sunday starting at 3am, Don Larson collected the bags along the boulevard and deposited them in the 3 bins that Waste Management donated for us - placed along the boulevard in two Ralph's parking lots and a Von's parking lot (thank you for letting us use this space for the bins over the weekend). This took him a total of 6 hours!
He collected just under 1000 bags of trash!
This will be an annual event now - with a different street that crosses the San Fernando Valley from east to west - maybe Devonshire - maybe Sherman Way - or any other suggestions that some may have? VCC is game for anything and anywhere!
Thank you all that helped - the Neighborhood Councils along the boulevard - all the Chambers of Commerce as well - Henry Stern, Jesse Gabriel, Nithya Raman, Notre Dame, Shepherd's Church, Waste Management, Ralphs and Vons... we could not have pulled this off without your support and enthusiasm concerning the project!
