By Clifford L. Williams,
Globe City Editor

Several thousand volunteers throughout the East Bay worked together to clean
up, restore and rebuild their communities during Earth Day activities on Tuesday, April 22.


    Oakland’s “Clean it, Green it, Mean it” campaign set up eight volunteer staging areas throughout the city that supported over 100 clean up sites, including parks, schools, medians, creeks and blighted areas.
    Marvin Lyles of the Oakland Parks and Recreation Department said that clean up efforts at Arroyo Viejo Creek have helped bring wildlife back to the area. “Years ago there wasn’t any wildlife in the creek because of all the debris,” he said. “This is the cleanest it’s ever been, because there’s been less dumping in the area.”
    Volunteers have been focusing on a 750-foot stretch of the creek where they pull weeds, pick up trash and put in native plans. “As a result of continued maintenance, there’s less work on clean up and more planting in the open paces,” said Ali Schwarz, coordinator of the capital improvement project.
    Terry Thomas has been coming to Arroyo Viejo Park for years. “There’s been a lot of improvement at this park,” he said. “Keeping this park clean is important to me, because I grew up around here. East Oakland isn’t like Pleasanton. Somebody drops trash on the ground, it’s not going to get picked up the next day.”

    At the Youth Uprising volunteer site on Earth Day, employment development specialist Marquese Rice worked with a crew of eight volunteers to clean up the area between 83rd and 98th avenues in East Oakland. “We filled several trash bags in this targeted area,” said Rice. “A lot of people in businesses and homes in the area were thankful for our cleanup and really appreciated our efforts.”

    Volunteer Natalie DaSilva said she and her son have been helping clean up Sausal Creek in Dimond Park for the past six years. “We just want to make a contribution and help make Oakland even more beautiful than it is,” said DaSilva. “This creek is fortunate in that it is cleaned regularly, so today we’re just taking out invasive and non-native plants and replacing them with native plants.”
    Berkeley celebrated Earth Day at Civic Center Park, where nearly 5,000 people gathered to recognize the environmental movement. Karen Hester coordinated the event, which included a food court, several dozen information booths related to Earth Day and hands-on recreational activities for youth and adults. “We’ve celebrated Earth Day here in Berkeley since it started back in the ’70s, and out of that came the Clean Water and Air Act,” said Hester.
    “We have a lot of nonprofits out here that are educating people on how to act individually and as a community to lighten our impact on Mother Earth. We have so many issues that need to be worked on, such as global warming. We need to join together, take on the powers that be and save our planet,” she said.
    Cities in West County, including El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole, Richmond, San Pablo and El Sobrante, celebrated Earth Day with a volunteer effort involving nearly 2,450 participants at the Integrated Resource Recovery Facility on Pittsburg Avenue in North Richmond. The recycling plant was transformed into a giant party for the earth, featuring live music, food, information, arts and crafts and games.
    “Our goal is to get entire families out here to help them better understand how to use their blue carts versus carts used for trash and green waste,” said Claudia Taurea, interim executive director of Recyclemore in West County. “We wanted to educate the public on what they can do to help make an impact on cutting back on climate change and global warming. We encourage people to recycle on a daily basis.”
    Other activities included free tours of the West County recycling center, landfill, municipal compost facility and wastewater treatment plant.
    The tours took people to places they don’t often get to see, like the inside of the recycling center, where recyclables are sorted, baled and readied for shipment around the world.

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