On Saturday Oct. 14, the City of Chula Vista held a memorable 20th annual county-wide clean up; Beautify Chula Vista. Volunteers from all over the community gathered at Memorial park located on Third Avenue and to help clean up their environment. The volunteer event not only served as a community cleanup, but also as an opportunity for community bonding.
“This is a great opportunity to get outdoors, to participate [and] to do something good for the community, to have fun and to be with a group. It’s a win-win for the community, a win-win for the city, [and] a win-win for the residents […] because participation in our community group work helps us clean up and beautify our city,” Environmental service member Manuel Medrano said.
As trash has become an ongoing issue in Chula Vista, organizing a clean up was necessary to ensure maintenance of the city. Moreover, trash ending up on the streets could find its way into storm drains and eventually up in the ocean, the bay, and the city’s waterways.
“Contrary to what a lot of people think over here, storm drains go right into our oceans, into our waterways, [and] into our bay. [With] us cleaning up all this debris that we see on the streets, we are preventing that from happening, so it’s very important for [the community] to do this kind of work,” Medrano said.
Therefore, there is a need to prevent and lessen the trash and debris that has previously ended up in the oceans and bays where sea life is heavily affected. Not only is there damage to ocean life, but also wildlife on the land and number of domesticated animals within the community.
“We also have animals, domestic or wild animals that are affected by trash and a lot of the debris that is left behind,” Chula Vista Mayor John McCann states.
McCann first joined the city council 20 years ago around the same time Beautify Chula Vista was created. There has been an effort to remain active with Beautify Chula Vista and gain a greater amount of recognition with the help of volunteers and other organizations donating their sponsorships for this event.
“I wish we had more sponsors, to be able to advertise this, but we’ve had a great turn out and we hope that in the future we will have other people who would want to be able to donate more,” McCann said.
Despite the less desirable number of sponsorships offered for Beautify Chula Vista, the amount of community volunteers that showed up to the event exceeded expectations. Mayra Estrada explains the will and power of volunteers every year who come out to bring Chula Vista’s environment back up again.
“Over the years we’ve seen a lot more willingness to participate. I know even if our participation went down, at least those that do participate are very eager and willing to come out and clean up,” Estrada said.
An increasing population of volunteers participating in this event is a celebratory concept for those in charge of organizing the event. Having the increased population only means that more trash is picked up on the streets, preventing harm to the wildlife all across Chula Vista.
“Seeing residents that are actively getting involved in their community to contribute to sustainability and improving our local area makes it so that everyone can really enjoy Chula Vista and Chula Vista is called Chula Vista [to translate as] Beautiful View,” Estrada said.
The sight of people carrying trash bags filled to the brim with debris and trash brought a smile to a number of faces. The scene brought satisfaction and reassurance to those in the community signifying their environment is cleaner than when they started.
“Sometimes we have a lot of hazardous waste that’s left like needles and so [we] make sure that we’re cleaning up [all of that]. A lot of what we’re also doing is painting trash cans and removing graffiti, and that’s just to kind of clean up, especially the areas that we feel do have a lot more tagging and to make [our community] look a lot nicer,” Estrada says.
