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Spring Valley community members come together to host an intersectional environmental outreach event to empower, educate, and inspire their neighborsEast County News Service
Photo: Hands Around the Earth, Public Domain Vectors
April 21, 2022 (Spring Valley) – The Spring Valley Cleanup Crew, San Diego County Parks and Recreation, and a coalition of Spring Valley community groups are collaborating for Spring Valley Earth Day this Saturday, Apr. 23, at 1 p.m. at 3180 Bancroft Dr, Spring Valley, CA 91977 for a fully encompassing and intersectional Earth Day event.
The cleanup crew plans to empower their community by involving the public in the process of planting new trees in the park, participating in a community cleanup, registering their neighbors to vote, offering free skate lessons, and providing folks with information regarding local board meetings. This way, there is a community investment in Spring Valley’s urban canopy along with a newly reclaimed agency.
The crew plans to educate their community by providing different workshops on the environment such as discussions of native flora, endangered wildlife, and practical skills such as composting and gardening. Lastly, they will inspire their community to cultivate more sustainable habits by providing them with eco-friendly resources such as LED light bulbs, PRONTO cards, reusable water bottles, gardening equipment, native seeds, used children's books, and further resources.
“I want the kids who grow up here to know they don't need to leave Spring Valley to make it.” Victoria Abrenica, founder and president of the Spring Valley Cleanup Crew and board member of Spring Valley’s Parks and Recreation Board, said in a Feb. 4 email to San Diego County Supervisorial staff. "I hope this event will serve as a pivotal first step in pushing for more trees, community gardens, green spaces, and changing the surfaces under the playground structures at our parks here in Spring Valley.”
The Spring Valley Cleanup Crew has a strong presence at Spring Valley’s Climate Action Plan meetings, Parks and Recreation Meetings, Community Town Halls, and Planning Group meetings where they advocate for their community’s health, safety, and well being. In doing so, they were successful in adding three projects to the county’s 20-21 and 21-22 PLDO Project Lists. (Replace wood chips with rubberized product in all parks starting with Lamar park, More community Gardens, Plant more trees in parks)
Although they were successful in pushing our local boards to add “Replace wood chips with rubberized product in all parks starting with Lamar Park” to the 20-21 PLDO Project List and move it to the top of the 21-22 PLDO Project List, they say the surface under the playground remains unchanged.
Although the county plans to open a community garden at Ildica Park, the crew says the twenty planter boxes will not be enough to feed everyone in Spring Valley, where over 40,000 community members live in a food desert.
Although the county will provide trees to be planted at Lamar County Park, which will increase Spring Valley’s urban canopy, the crew is demanding more trees be planted, in order to comply with the county’s CAP goals. The cleanup crew says over five hundred-fifty trees need to be planted in Spring Valley’s parks by May of 2022, and the county isn’t close to meeting half of that goal.
The cleanup crew created three petitions that they will be launching at Saturday’s event to ensure their demands and community’s needs are met. They will be pushing these petitions all while hosting skate lessons, live music, kids crafts, resource distributions, environmental workshops, cleanups, and tree planting.
About the Spring Valley Cleanup Crew
The Spring Valley Cleanup Crew was founded in 2020 to directly resolve environmental justice issues facing the Spring Valley community. Initially, we solely cleaned up specific areas where large buildups of trash existed. In doing so we quickly realized that our cause necessitated greater actions. We have since expanded our efforts to include food and supply distribution to people without homes, voter registration drives, school supply drives, collaborations with local activist groups, and political advocacy.
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