San Rafael - Canal Clean Up

Sometimes, an opportunity is right in front of you. 

For America SCORES program coordinator Kevin Calderon, the opportunity lay right outside his parent’s front door in the Canal District of San Rafael, in a small neighborhood park right across the street from Bahia Vista Elementary School. Visiting his parents during the early days of the pandemic, Kevin noticed trash strewn about the field and an absence of garbage cans. Kevin understood that with schools closed and kids cooped inside, this field represented freedom and play for kids, a break from all the restrictions. But it was blighted with trash.

“I started thinking that as coaches and students, we’re poet-athletes, but we’re also athlete activists. We do service learning, and we think about problems and solutions in our own communities,” Kevin said. 

Kevin decided to do something about it and reached out to his SCORES colleagues Amber Bugarin Astillero, Evora Bon-Acosta, Alex Argueta, and Leah Morales. The group discussed a plan to bring kids together - both SCORES students and neighborhood kids - to learn about proper trash pick-up and disposal.

The group picked and day for a clean-up, and hung fliers around the neighborhood inviting kids and families to the event. It was a hit, so much so that several more clean-up days were planned. For that first event, the kids were provided trash bags and gloves. But more was needed, so Kevin and his clean-up colleagues reached out to Zero Waste Marin, which provided trash picker-uppers (claws), water bottles, and reusable bags, which could be used to transport trash to larger garbage cans. 

The kids loved it, and more of them began to show up. Kevin and his team added pick-up buckets from Home Deport and started giving away soccer balls and jerseys. The effort clearly resonated with kids and families. 

“During the pandemic, a lot of kids didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing, and they felt almost useless. Doing this clean-up gave them a sense of purpose, one they took on with ownership,” Kevin explains. 

But the reality was that more neighborhood parks needed clearing up. The effort needed to expand. Riding on the success of the initial clean-ups, the clean-up SCORES colleagues dreamed up Canal Clean Up 2.0, this time adding competition, incentive, and a self-driving mechanism to the mix. 

“We divided the kids into five teams, with different leadership roles within each group. One kid is in charge of the bucket, another the picker-upper, and so on,” Kevin explains. “One kid used an app to track what they were picking up.” 

The teams compete to see much trash each can pick up, and the competitive spirit has been fierce. So far they’ve done four clean-ups over two months and, spurred on by their success, have extended their clean-up efforts to their own schoolyards. 

At the end of the season, the winning team will receive $100 and all will gather for a fun picnic and soccer game. Beyond that, the larger goal is to expand outreach into even more Canal neighborhoods and to support parent communication via a WhatsApp channel for future clean-up events.

For Kevin and his SCORES colleagues, the kids’ drive to better their own communities has been heartening. “We felt a purpose too, going back and giving back. It was great!” he says.