The Coyote Creek Homeless Stream Stewards
By Richard McMurtry
When you look into the eyes of a homeless person on the creek and genuinely are interested in who they are, it is hard not to fall in love with them. "Love" in the sense of caring about them: wanting the best for them; seeing their humanity and their goodness – warts and all. And, wanting to empower them to be the stewards of the creek, rather than the trashers of the creek.
On September 25th, the Coyote Creek Homeless
Stream Stewards held its first trash cleanup at two encampments along Coyote Creek just north of Capitol Expressway. Despite city warnings that the homeless are "dangerous," we worked with four individuals living in that area to pick up about 15 bags of trash. Then we went to Round Table and had pizza to celebrate our work together. More cleanups are planned for October.
The mottos of the Coyote Creek Homeless Stream Stewards are:
With the help of the homeless, our community volunteer cleanups will make headway against the backlog of trash along the creek. No longer will we be picking up trash that was generated between cleanups.- Collecting creekside trash as fast as it’s generated
- Protecting Coyote Creek
- Serving the community
 |
| Stream area prior to cleanup |
 |
| Stream area following Stream Stewards cleanup |
 |
| Richard McMurtry (second from right) with three of the team members |
 |
| Stream Steward member looking regal |
How can I donate to the group?
ReplyDelete