Local volunteers and residents woke up early Saturday morning to be of service in their neighborhoods for the annual “Neighborhood Cleanup” and a tree planting ceremony celebrating Arbor Day hosted by the city of Santa Clarita.
City officials provided free gloves, trash bags, and a bag of mulch at three different locations for residents to use during the neighborhood cleanup. The locations were Canyon Country Park, Newhall Community Center, and Valencia Heritage Park.
The goal of the cleanup is to provide an opportunity for residents to get free supplies to beautify their communities, said Lindsay Schmandt, project technician with environmental services for the city.
Some of the area’s community members clean up streets within their neighborhoods, paseos, and hiking trails, added Schmandt.
A bag of free mulch and native drought-resistant plants were also given out for free by the city’s Urban Forestry Division to promote both Arbor and Earth Day, which was on Monday.
Eight-year-old Montgomery Dohrmann was picking up trash along Valencia Heritage Park with her mother Alli Jepson before they made their way to the Arbor Day tree-planting ceremony with her Girl Scout Troop 1162.
Jepson was informed that before the ceremony local residents were encouraged to participate in a neighborhood cleanup and thought it would be nice to volunteer their time and help clean their community, she said.
“I feel like it helps the animals, help save endangered species, helps plants and it was really fun,” said Dohrmann.
“We found like a couple of plastic wraps for like snacks,” she said. Aluminum cans and plastic bottles were other objects found on the ground, added Jepson.
“We didn’t think that there was going to be much trash because visibly it looks very clean. But then you start really using an acute eye, you can see there is actually a lot [of trash],” said Jepson. “Most of it is food consumption like snack wrappers. I was saying to her [Dohrmann], we may not think it’s a big deal to drop something on the ground but when a lot of people do, it accumulates overtime.”
During the Arbor Day tree planting ceremony, Santa Clarita Mayor Cameron Smyth and his fellow City Council members grabbed shovels and gardening gloves to help plant a fresh new Afrocarpus Gracilior tree, also known as a fern pine.
Local Girl Scout troops assisted council members in planting the tree near the apparatus at Valencia Heritage Park.
The children eagerly filled up the newly planted tree with fresh soil to ensure it would thrive in its new environment. City employees who dedicate their time to beautifying the city led the ceremony through a step-by-step process so the children and other guests could learn how to accurately plant a large tree.
Daisy Troop Co-leader Jennifer Ell took three Girl Scouts to the tree planting ceremony hoping they would learn the importance of environmental awareness, she said.
“It’s a part of being a good Girl Scout, to take care of your environment. It’s one of the Girl Scout Law [to] reuse, reduce, recycle and to take care of our climate and just be aware of those things because we have to take care of our Earth [and] take care of our people,” Elle said. “They got to take part in planting a tree and in a local neighborhood. When they come to visit this park they can say, ‘Hey, I helped out with that tree!’”.
