And so it Begins....

American River under the Guy West Bridge

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning.  It was cold and my blankets were already warm.  I didn't help that my animals, also full of warmth, were snuggled up against me.  Alas, I arose from my bed, grumbling but excited to start off this year fresh.

Today’s service was for American River Parkway Foundation.  This amazing group helps keep the American River beautiful by supporting the preservation of the American River Parkway.  We met at the Cal Expo RV park to clean up a nearby stretch of the river.  Our group consisted of a handful of high school kids doing community service, and some wonderful seniors that had been doing this a while.  A couple of the seniors are mile stewards, volunteers that keep an eye out for an assigned mile along the river.  

Chloe and Vet Tech me
Circa 2012

One of the high school kids was from a different school and was sort of a co-leader.  He was doing his senior project on pollution.  Shout out to you, buddy!  I was terrified to present to my class of about 20 people and here you are leading a group of strangers!

My first satisfying moment was when I volunteered to hold the sharps container.  A sharps container is used to hold needles and such that we might encounter on the way.  The only requirement was if I had handled used needles before.  Of course I have!  The second, and last, time I dropped out of college, I was a vet tech student.  I am all too familiar with sharps containers for that reason.  

The American River Parkway is home to quite a few house-less people in the city.  I don’t judge for I have been in their shoes in one way or another.  We were first greeted by a dog guarding a tent.  It wasn’t barking or growling but had a defensive stance.  Good dog, protecting your family and such. 

One of the mile stewards happened to oversee the area we were cleaning and led a small group, me included, to an abandoned camp.  It was a mess but what can you expect?  A storm had come through a couple of days ago which made the trash difficult to pick up.  One of the volunteers found a bucket full of feces and water (thanks rain!)  It smelled awful, but I can thank my experience working as a vet tech for not being phased by it (as vet techs often find themselves covered in waste as well.)  

The site was shockingly full of books destroyed by the rain.  In fact, I think most of the waste consisted of books!  Whoever was here was a reader.  I unexpectedly became emotional.  Years ago, I had a good friend that struggled with mental issues and, eventually, drug abuse.  Last time I heard, she was homeless and abandoned her family.  What if this was her camp?  What if she was here?  What happened to whoever was here?  Why did they up and leave all their stuff?  Are they even still alive?  My heart ached for whoever used to call this place home.  How did they end up here? What can I do to help people not end up in the same situation?  

Another thing that got me thinking was all the multi-use plastic bags.  These are the only bags available in California since the ban on single use bags.  The whole thing seems confusing since some stores still carry single use bags!  What?!  Anyway, there were both single and multi-use bags at this camp.  The difference was that the single use bags were incredibly hard to pick up since they were starting to decompose.  The multi-use bags were still in perfect condition.  That is good…I guess.  Except that we switched to multi-use bags to help with pollution.  Is it really helping the pollution problem if the bags take even longer to break down than they did before?  Are multi-use bags possibly worse??  I could tell that the camp wasn’t abandoned that long ago.  There were Monopoly pieces from Safeway, which just started their game on the 6^th of this month.  

Today was a great day even though it remained cold.  The seniors really worked their butts off.  I hope I can be that active at 60 and 70!  We worked until we ran out of bags.  We agreed that we wish we could have cleaned the site 100%, but we’d have to settle for only 80%.  It’s better than nothing!