In partnership with the city of Watsonville and the “Trash Talkers” volunteer group, Santa Cruz County on Dec. 17 hosted a cleanup along Corralitos Creek near Airport Boulevard and Pajaro Lane to highlight the expansion of the Community Action Board’s Watsonville Works program.
Volunteers helped remove trash and recyclables along Corralitos Creek to improve the water quality and the quality of life for the neighborhood along the creek. Volunteers returned with hundreds of pieces of garbage, food carts, mattresses and bicycle frames. Three truckloads of garbage and recyclable materials, or about 2,000 cubic feet, were collected by Santa Cruz County Public Works staff and taken to the county landfill.
Community Aid Resource Effort (CARE) kits for the people experiencing homeless staying nearby were distributed by Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s officers. They came courtesy of the Tamiko Collins from the Santa Cruz County Veterans Memorial Building.
Watsonville Works helps those experiencing homelessness with job readiness and work experience services coupled with housing assistance. The program also includes trash and needle waste cleanup services as job training.
Watsonville Works has focused its efforts on unsheltered individuals in the downtown Watsonville, Pajaro River and slough areas to remove barriers to employment and housing, learn work skills and ultimately exit homelessness to permanent housing.
Of the 53 people who participated in the program for work experience and referrals to other support services last year, 26% received housing assistance, and of those housed, 86% became employed after services ended. Additionally, Watsonville Works participants removed a total of 1,950 bags of trash and 2,158 hypodermic needles were safely removed from designated Watsonville areas in the last year.
Recently, the county Board of Supervisors approved a contract with the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County to support the expansion of the Watsonville Works program in the greater Watsonville area.
Program members were at the most recent cleanup along with representatives from Santa Cruz County Public Works, the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office and Watsonville Public Works. Watsonville City Councilmember Lowell Hurst and Santa Cruz County Supervisor Greg Caput, along with several other community volunteers, were also present.
