santa fe april community clean up:

santa fe, new mexico | april 9, 2022
de vargus park, beneath the sandoval bridge

parks like de vargus park are such an important place to organize community clean ups. it is near the heart of santa fe and is used by many for recreating. upon arrival, we see skaters shredding at the skate park and some folks gathered playing cards at one of the tables. in addition, de vargus park seems to be a gathering place/temporary encampment for homeless folks in santa fe. once we arrive for the cleanup, we begin setting up for the event. we have the usual get up: tarps, buttons, bags, food, etc. it isn’t long before folks come over to respectfully ask for some of the muffins we brought for the volunteers. as a group, we decide to give all of the food we have to the folks at the park.

the under belly of the sandoval bridge is speckled with graffiti tags and needles. most of the park is littered with trash. we pick up over 800 pieces of litter and plan to return to de vargus park with hopefully more volunteers on may 14 to finish cleaning it. next time, with 20 burritos in tow. we think a part of keeping the parks clean is building relationship with the folks that use it the most. like it or not, that includes the unsheltered. like it or not, we are all neighbors.

this clean up is a reminder that our plastic consumption crisis is much more complex than what we see on the surface. it is easy and dismissive to blame unsheltered folks for trashing the park but how much would you care about litter if you were in in a perpetual state of survival? we are choosing to engage with unsheltered folks in santa fe and albuquerque in a positive way as to understand how we can sustainably mitigate the timeless challenge of homelessness. some of the volunteers were once homeless. i was once homeless. sometimes people are down on their luck. sometimes homelessness is a choice. many times in these situations, there is no room for failure as you swim in collapse.

we can all do our part to help by picking up litter, choosing to refuse single use plastics and collectively agreeing picking up a piece of litter a day and by simply saying hello a stranger. as we pick up litter we are brainstorming and discussing ways in which we can manage the the problem of plastic usage while keeping in mind that cleaning up our community is not just about trash.

we will be hosting clean ups each second saturday in santa fe throughout the summer. so far, we have collected and documented over 38,000 pieces of litter and we could use your help.