Today was our first full day in Asheville, and we served with Asheville GreenWorks doing a street cleanup. Towards the beginning of the street cleanup, a National Guard semi took a turn too tight and got the cargo stuck on the hill. Ironically, there was a sign that said, “sharp right” on that corner, and they knocked over a different street sign in 30-minute process of them trying to get the cargo unstuck. Obviously, we were all cracking up at them ripping up the hill and stopping all traffic–it was quite the sight–so Emily decided to take a picture of the stuck cargo next to the sign. A National Guard guy who saw her taking the photo came over and demanded to know what she was going to do with the photo. Guess they didn’t want to be embarrassed any further.
After cleaning up around half a mile over the course of 3 hours, we had picked up 28 bags of trash, 7 tires, and a T.V (and some other weird things like a roller blade and a social security card?). We could have picked up more if there hadn’t been traffic and wouldn’t have gotten hurt climbing down a hill. That’s when we found out that not only does this exact site get cleaned up twice a month–it had been cleaned twice the previous week, and we STILL picked up that much trash. It’s amazing to think how much people had littered since the last cleanup and how little people think about how their actions hurt the environment and the community. While debriefing over the service, we discussed how what we found depicted some of the issues the community is struggling with. The majority of the trash were cigarette butts, alcohol bottles, and fast food trash, and we also found around 6 needles used for heroin use. This relates back to our health and wellness theme in that this shows the amount of substance abuse in an area known for struggling with homelessness, poverty, and HIV. On the car ride back, we struggled with the fact that it is hard to address the routes of littering and that some people will truly never care about the environment no matter how much you try to educate.
After the street cleanup, we drove for an hour through CRAZY mountain roads to hike a 3 mile trail… only we drive up a mountain to find “closed road” signs and a very strange looking skunk which Emily decided to confront. No worries, she didn’t get sprayed, so we allowed her back in the car. Even though we didn’t get to hike, the views were awesome and totally worth it. We also almost hit a goat, and possibly hit a bird. We still are afraid to check. Since we didn’t get to hike, we stopped in a town on the way back to get coffee at a local shop.
Our group has such a good attitude and is having an awesome time here in Asheville. We can’t wait to learn more about health and wellness in the community!
–Tricia Busch