Looking for a fun socially distanced activity for your family where you get outside and give back to your community? Look no further! Get out and clean up our many waterways, just like our employees and thousands of volunteers did last week for the 7th annual Creek Week event.
Just because you missed Creek Week doesn’t mean there’s not more work to be done. One of the best things about living in the Pikes Peak Region is the many volunteer groups that help look after our parks, trails and waterways!
One of those groups is the Fountain Creek Watershed Flood Control and Greenway District now in its 7th year heading Creek Week. The “week” is actually a nine-day event starting at the end of September and into the first week of October. Each year thousands of volunteers come out and literally haul away tons of trash from in and around our waterways.
We have participated in Creek Week every year and, this year, we had around 55 volunteers (employees and family members) at three cleanup sites:
I met up with some of our volunteers this weekend at the Pikeview Reservoir cleanup, Cali from HR brought her family and said, “it’s a good, fulfilling way to spend part of your weekend.” She also talked about the importance of these cleanups, “the loads of trash that we got just in that time period, it’s very rewarding and needs to be done.”
Those loads of trash from Pikeview equated to more than 50 bags of litter, a car hood, a stroller, camp chairs and a cooler. Cigarette butts were the most common items collected. Cleanup efforts at all three of our sites totaled 100 bags of trash!
“Creek Week is very important to everyone in the community,” said Katie, a Water Resources Engineer that helped oversee the cleanups this year. “This is our water too; we live here, we work here, we recreate here and it truly is how we’re all connected. We’d like to say thank you to all of our volunteers who came out today, we really appreciate it.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking:
Q: But Ted… Creek Week 2020 already wrapped up, how am I supposed to volunteer?
A: There are volunteer cleanups year round, find resources to get involved at and begin practicing your cleanup technique for Creek Week 2021!
Volunteering in the community is important to us. In 1997, we established Community Focus Fund (CFF) to the enhance quality of life in the region by providing support to employee volunteer activities and non-profit initiatives. Through the CFF Volunteer Program, in 2019, 950 employees, family and friends volunteered 5,293 hours through 101 community projects.