We kayak regularly in the Base & Meridian Wildlife Wetlands in Avondale. Our kids love to bring their binoculars and watch pelicans dip and dive through the beautiful still water surrounded by a protective wall of bright green plants, in stark contrast to the noisy and crowded city just ten minutes away. There is usually no trash and we love to watch the birds migrate in and out yearly. Once COVID happened, the area has been flooded with day users and humans have left a trail of trash unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
“Our hearts were broken to see this area which provides a safe place for birds and animals to be filled with garbage.” “The amount of trash was devastating. It was in the parking lot, it was in the trees, it was in the shore, and it was in the water. We knew if we didn’t act fast, it would overwhelm the ecosystem here.”
Jerome, of the Multicultural Family Network nonprofit, called community leaders the same day to secure community donations for an immediate clean up. “The response from our local community in Avondale was immediate and powerful. Within an hour we had our jeep loaded with masks, gloves, trash bags, rakes, shovels, and trash claws. All we needed were people, so we reached out to our network.”
The Multicultural Family Network nonprofit provided masks, gloves, trash claws, shovels, and asked everyone to space out and stay socially distanced.
We began the messy, heartbreaking, disgusting work of picking up other people’s hurtful choices. Beer bottles, diapers, fishing lines, food containers, human waste in plastic containers, toilet paper, trash upon trash upon trash. “It brought me to getting physically ill seeing some of the things human beings have done and left behind here. Nobody should have to clean up these items. Yet, if we don’t help make this area clean our kids won’t be able to kayak and bird watch here. I am afraid at the pace of this destruction this ecosystem can’t keep up, and this area will be closed to the public.” Said Joy.
It was easy to be overcome with the trash and want to give up, but people showed up at just the right time. Complete strangers took a mask, gloves, trash bag, and rake when offered them- and jumped in to join our family. They expressed sorrow over the devastating trash also and wanted to help. One was a photographer named Ashley from Avondale who loves to visit and take photos. One was a multicultural family from Ghana who said they would stay and help clean up with us. Several people walked by and didn’t help, saying it wasn’t their problem, that they were there to fish, not clean up other people’s trash. Others without hesitation grabbed the masks, gloves, and rakes offered to them and delayed their fun for an hour to help remove trash.
It was at this moment I realized that as individuals, as a community, and as a country, we may not choose the mess we see in front of us, but we can always choose how we respond.
We want to thank all our Multicultural Family Network nonprofit community partners who helped by powering the positive with supplies for our event – Home Depot, Sam’s Club, and O Capital Group.
Our community partners today helped power the positive by donating the needed supplies on a moment’s notice. We are so grateful for their donations.
“If you looked out at the Base & Meridian wetlands today you would see a field dotted with strangers, people of all ages, of all cultures, of all walks of life, building a network of peace and working to make a cleaner world, a safer world, for everyone to live. That visual is powerful and change like this is the heart of what we do. We provide a network to power the positive change our world so desperately needs.”
Jerome Brownlee JR – President & Founder Multicultural Family Network
Together we removed a whopping 1,150 gallons of trash from the wetlands. 1,150 gallons of trash and waste posing immediate harm to our animals, water, ecosystem and home. We watched a fish hop out of the water before we left, and it felt like a thank you. The silky blue gray pelican stood still at the waters edge, dipping her beak into water and didn’t pull out a plastic cup- this time. Today the animals can breathe a little better, be in a little less danger, but their largest threat in this area is still present- humans.
Noelle, age 13 watches a beautiful pelican scoop up a fish from the water, while a plastic container floats out of reach in the water nearby.
We hope that our community can come together to keep this area clean. We brainstormed some solutions such as enact “pack in pack out“ education programs here, patrol the area, provide penalties for littering, and create trash collection systems here. There’s a lot we could do as a community, but none would replace the individual responsibility needed for humans who visit this area. As our 7 year old daughter Alivia said on the way home, “If you’re old enough to drive a car to visit here, you’re old enough to carry out your own trash.” We want to bring awareness to this need and as a community help keep it clean so that it can remain open and enjoyed by generations to come.
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