Volunteers get down and dirty to clean up Tierra Rejada Park
Kiwanis sponsor effort to pick up the trash others have left behind
By Miguel Morales miguel@theacorn.com

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers BETTER THAN THEY FOUND IT- Above, Lindsey Goodwin and Corrine Mansfield of the Sinaloa Middle School Builders Club, use rakes and shovels to dig trash out of the banks of the Arroyo Simi. Right, Dale Kauffman drags a dirt-caked shopping cart up the hillside to add to an already huge pile of trash.

Gray clouds didn't stop area residents from getting their hands dirty Saturday as they joined forces to clean up Tierra Rejada Park.

The group effort was held in conjunction with the Kiwanis Club of Simi Valley's One Day project, part of a worldwide Kiwanis event that takes place the first Saturday of every April.

More than 120 volunteers, many of them young people, showed up to lend a hand at sprucing up the 150-acre park on the west end of Simi Valley.

Working from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., volunteers aimed to remove trash and debris left over many years by transients who until recently made the lush park their makeshift camp.

The event was part of a continuing effort to maintain the Arroyo Simi and help preserve open space in Simi for future use by the community, according to Elaine Hintlian, president of Kiwanis Club of Simi Valley.

Working with the Kiwanis and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Parks District to accomplish those goals, Hintlian said, are members of Key Clubs and Builders Blubs at high schools and middle schools and several Boy Scout troops.

"This place has a lot of potential of being a beautiful park. There is just a lot of work that needs to be done," Hintlian said. "It would be a shame to let it go to waste."

Located off Tierra Rejada Road just west of Kmart, the park is not well-known in Simi Valley, according to Lori Kelly, a Simi resident.

Kelly and her daughter were on hand Saturday to help out. The mother-daughter team helped others rake up trash along a dusty trail leading to the Arroyo.

"It's an impressive place," Kelly said. "The people that lived here should have taken better care of it."

Volunteers were given rakes, shovels and safety equipment before splitting up into groups to remove trash from a 16-acre section of the park.

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers HAZARDOUS WASTE- As part of "Kiwanis One Day," a global Kiwanis Club park cleanup day, the Simi Valley club recruited dozens of volunteers to help clean trash out of the Arroyo Simi and the hillsides of Tierra Rejada Park. Much of the trash was hazardous waste, such as car batteries, propane tanks and tires.

The park district brought in Bobcat heavy-duty forklifts to aid in the cleanup. According to Kiwanis event organizer Larry Cox, 20 tons of trash had been removed from the park in the months preceding the One Day project, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

"This was a messy project; it's not something everyone wants to do," Cox said. "I'm just glad people showed up to help out."

Among the trash collected by volunteers were broken bottles, children's toys, old clothes, batteries and tin cans. An ambulance, provided by Bob McLaren's Event Medical Standbys services, was on site in case anyone got hurt, and lunch was provided by the Kiwanis Club. Two months ago, the park was home to over 50 people who had even built their own shrine out of stones, according to Colleen Janssen, marketing and community outreach specialist for the park district.

Some of the park's former residents have banded together and moved on into other nearby cities, while others remain in the area, making use of Simi's homeless services. Most of those services operate out of the Samaritan Center, Janssen said.

"Many communities just go in and run them out or have them arrested," she said. "But our general manager (Larry Peterson) wanted to figure out a better way to do it."

Some of the students who volunteered were surprised at how much trash there was.

Noheli Guerrero, a member of Royal High's Key Club, said she showed up expecting to see only adults and park district employees. The 16-year-old said she was surprised to be shoveling garbage with kids her own age.

"I didn't expect to see anyone I knew, but there are a bunch of people from my school out here," Noheli said.

Kiwanis One Day: One Way, One Day, One K is an event meant to unite the entire Kiwanis family in service, said club member Inge Tretner. More than 1 million people all over the world volunteer in some way, she said.

Kiwanis is an international organization serving the children of the world.

"This was a good turnout; we are pleased with the results," Tretner said.