Golas: Community responsibility doesn’t stop at city limits

Thirty volunteers in bright blue vests cleared 4,000 pounds of dumping from a treasured creek in San Jose. Those numbers tell the story of Urban Compassion Project’s first cleanup in San Jose, but they don’t capture what made the experience so meaningful toward bringing UCP’s community-driven movement beyond Oakland and across the entire Bay Area. What stood out to me was the welcoming spirit of Mayor Matt Mahan, the Coyote Mudlarks and the San Jose Conservation Corps, and the willingness of our volunteers to show up for a city they didn’t call home. We rigged ropes down a steep and muddy ravine to reach the water and haul shopping carts, car jacks and refrigerators from Coyote Creek. The cleanup reinforced that communities may be separated by city boundaries, but the challenges we face, and our responsibility to address them, are shared.

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