Volunteers come out in Folsom, American River Parkway Saturday to make a difference
As the sun rose Saturday morning, many took to the great outdoors do enjoy the great spring weather I many forms. For some, it meant getting out in the community and volunteering to help improve the trails they love to enjoy this time of year.
From Folsom to the Sacramento Valley, trails were the focus for much of the day Saturday as volunteers worked in many ways to give our local trails some tender loving care in the form of clean up as well as repair.
In the City of Folsom, some 40 volunteers of all ages turned out for the 28th annual Trails Day and Arbor Day presented by Folsom Parks and Recreation. A combination of individuals, service clubs and school groups built the team of laborers that focused on some specific areas of the intercity trails that needed some attention.
After meeting at Econome Park for check in and to receive their official T-shirt, volunteers headed to a few different areas to tackle their specific assignments. One of the larger projects included the much-needed shoulder repair along the Oak Avenue Parkway Trail in the area of Blue Ravine Road.
Similar repairs were made to the trails that run behind the Raley’s shopping center off Natoma Street and Blue Ravine Road. Volunteers restored many of the areas of the shoulder that had washed out from the onslaught of winter storms, making the trail safer for recreationalists and preventing further damage.
Another project of the day included removing the tree cages from planted mitigation trees in the duck pond area of Humbug-Willow Creek Trail.
When the work was complete, volunteers gathered for lunch courtesy of the City of Folsom and Pizza Guys.
Further down the hills, the American River Parkway Foundation saw some 700 volunteers turn out for its annual Spring Clean Up Day. This effort involved cleaning up trash and abandoned encampments along the American River Parkway.
Spring Clean-Up is the American River Parkway Foundation’s second-largest annual clean-up and helps remove more than 10,000 pounds of trash from the Parkway each year.
“It’s disheartening to see all of the trash that is being left along these beautiful trails but at the same time it is heartwarming to see the great turnout of volunteers to help clean it up,” said volunteer Pat Hartsough. “We can’t take this parkway for granted and we can’t let it be taken over and destroyed as well. Getting out here a couple times of year is the least we can do.”
Volunteers cleaned up the areas around eight different areas along the parkway. Discovery Park topped the list of busy sites as well as Northgate stretch of the parkway trails, Cal Expo, Howe Avenue, Watt Avenue, River Bend Park, the upper Sunrise stretch of the trail and sections along Gold Country Boulevard.
