Volunteers needed for this weekend’s ‘Serve Santa Maria’ cleanup event
Dave Alley
SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Organizers of “Serve Santa Maria” are looking for volunteers to take part in this weekend’s cleanup event.
On Saturday, Sept. 6, Serve Santa Maria will hold its 28th edition of the event with a number of projects slated to be completed.
“The day is fast approaching and we need volunteers come out,” said Serve Santa Maria founder and organizer Carl Nielsen. “If you come out and give away a few hours of your time, I almost can guarantee you’re going to walk away after a few hours and go, oh, that was really cool.”
Created in 2010, Serve Santa Maria is an event that brings community members together for a day to work on a number of repair and improvements programs around the Santa Maria area.
“It’s a wonderful way to reach out to your community and show your love and your compassion for others,” said longtime volunteer Nancy Diaz. “It’s just important to show our love and respect for Santa Maria. Every person in Santa Maria benefits because we’re all connected. We are all in this together.”
Typically, the event draws between 200 to 400 volunteers, and for this Saturday, Nielsen indicated about 100 are still needed to make it work efficiently.
“We want to accomplish all of the projects that we have,” said Nielsen. “Volunteers are the key and I do call them heroes because without them, we’re nothing.”
For this Saturday’s event, there are 20 projects lined up including graffiti cleanup, litter removal, park and school improvement, painting, planting, adding landscape and spreading bark.
There’s also work scheduled at a few homes of older residents that includes fence repair, general maintenance, yard restoration and much more.
“This is definitely making an impact by helping Santa Maria look better,” said Diaz. “We are raring to go and are getting ready to just roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
Serve Santa Maria will take place on Saturday, Sept. 6.
Volunteers can either sign up online at servesantamaria.com or by showing up to the Abel Maldonado Youth Center on Sept. 6 between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m.
A gathering to begin the event will be held at that time and will offer volunteers complimentary breakfast items.
For more information about Serve Santa Maria, click here to visit the official website.
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