By Lori BODNAR intern

Now that spring has sprung, many might be sweeping up, pruning or gardening, and doing a bit of spring cleaning. Around 50 volunteers on Saturday pulled on some work gloves and took the idea of spring cleaning even further. Instead of tidying up just their own homes, they helped clean up foothill neighborhoods at the Foothill Community Clean Up Day.

For more than 23 years, volunteers have turned out for the The Foothill Clean Up event. The event is sponsored by the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce and the nonprofit organization Glendale Clean & Beautiful, an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful. The Keep America Beautiful community improvement program, which last year around 5 million volunteers participated in, cleaned up around 186 million pounds of litter and debris nationwide. 

The Foothill Community Clean Up event offered volunteer service opportunities for students, families, scout troops, service organizations and businesses to work together to make the community cleaner. Armen Avedian, the chair of Glendale Clean & Beautiful, and Jean Maluccio, who is on the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce, helped organize the event with Cynthia Livingston to beautify La Crescenta’s “Main Street.”   

Volunteers met for a continental breakfast on the south lot of Bob Smith Toyota where they received safety and cleaning instructions and cleaning supplies before splitting into groups. Each group had between six and eight people and there were about nine teams on Saturday. Besides trash grabbers for picking up trash and trash bags to put refuse in, there were also hoes for taming weeds and some pruning shears for wayward bushes and trees. The volunteers tidied up Foothill Boulevard, from Lowell Avenue to La Crescenta Avenue. Each group was assigned one block to clean up. 

The event ran from 9 a.m. to noon. Sam Engel, a Glendale Clean & Beautiful leader and retired city administrator, said, “I think it is important to have a town that is clean and sustainable. It is good to have the kids do this. I have been doing this as a volunteer for five years. When we first started, Foothill wasn’t as clean but after we did this it gets cleaner and it works. We do both sides of the street. Bob Smith Toyota has allowed us to use their lot for seven years. Foothill Escrow pays for the lunch and the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce pays for breakfast.”

“For years, I did the Foothill Clean Up while a principal at Fremont Elementary and Rosemont Middle School, encouraging my students,” said Livingston. “Now that I am retired, it is natural for me to still help clean up. It gets the boulevard shiny clean. I think it is nice to do this because it lets our businesses know we care for and love them and our community.”

Members of Kiwanis K-Kids at Fremont Elementary School and the Kiwanis Builders Club at Rosemont Middle School also volunteered for the Foothill Community Clean Up Day. Joel Savin is a K-Kid from Fremont.

“I volunteered for the Foothill Clean Up because I wanted to get more community service hours and to help the community,” said Joel.

“We have come here a few times,” added Jacklyn Savin, an adult volunteer. “I think it is important for kids to start helping the community.”

  Lori BODNAR