apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

There always seem to be hidden, not well known, WONDERFUL city resources available, if people knew where to find them or access them. Thanks Gregory!

Up here in San Francisco, I'd called around about the garbage/dumping on our street. I was just trying to get some information, really, but it turned out they would be MORE than happy to drop off supplies for me to do the job myself. Which is what I was going to do anyway. Their supplies made the job soooo much easier.

Garbage bags, latex and leather gloves (depending on what kinds of trash I was picking up or dragging out), a giant broom that was too big for me to handle. Caution tape to put out around larger items or groups of bags. It wasn't a community effort, it was just me, pissed off at dumping and littering.

And while on one side of the street had all the trendy joggers and walkers and benefits of the Rec and Park department, plus a volunteer organization, the other side of the street had no one...er...just me.

So I did it on my own. It took days. People were curious, those trendy joggers, wanting to know if I was working off traffic tickets. hahaha. Uh, no, I'm doing this of my own free will. I said you get your exercise your way, I get my exercise this way, and my way makes a difference to me and my street and even to you who uses the path across the road.

There's a good chance that the L.A. area may have something similar. Or just go out on your own with a few bags from groceries and fill 'em up with street litter. And don't litter yourself either. The WORST kind of litter is the LITTLE stuff. Like cigarette butts. A big bag of garbage can be pulled out, and then picked up by the city easily. Those little things are time consuming.

People WILL notice that you care. They WILL notice that you are cleaning up. I've found that it's generally not something I can ask others to do, because they don't want to do it. But one person can make a difference. And it reminds others that one person makes a difference and maybe they will try to do more...doesn't have to be there, can be anywhere, whatever it is they can do more of to make the world a better place. Even if it's just picking up a blowing piece of paper. It all matters.

Andree, I completely agree with your philosophy of doing those small things that show care for your own neighborhood (and the world in general). When I was running regularly (before the shackles of this 9-7 job), I used to make it a habit to pick up at least one piece of trash during my running route. It might have been just one can or a single crumpled newspaper, but its my 'hood, and I believe no effort is wasted.

Change starts one person at a time...thanks for being one of those people taking responsibility into their own hands!

The graffiti clean up is amazing. The apt building across the street from my house gets tagged almost every week, and the city comes out to paint it over the day after (sometimes the day of) receiving the report. One time, they even painted over the tag on a Saturday!

There are a ton of amazing resources from the city, from requesting trees to be planted on your sidewalk, to FREE trees that you can plant in your yard, plus all the compost you could ever want!

I've found that the city website can be a little difficult to navigate, but if you keep on digging, there are a ton of great resources out there.