TUCSON, Ariz. — Every month, Monique Trujillo puts together a group of volunteers to clean up Himmel Park.
"It’s something quick and easy that people just starting out in volunteering can really grasp onto," says Trujillo. "It’s just show up and clean the park, pick up some trash, pick up litter."
For the past three years, she has been in charge of running and hosting the cleanups, as well as training new volunteers.
Like Trujillo, most of the people who come out to help clean the park are members of Pima Community College's honor societies, but volunteers are encouraged to bring more people to help out.
Since the group's cleanups started, Trujillo says sh has seen first-hand the difference they're making.
"We did notice a lot of trash when we first started ... but since then we’ve seen a really big decline in all of that," says Trujilo. "Every time we do this, we have at least one or two people come up to us and say thank you for cleaning the park. The park-goers are very friendly about it."
Even though the cleanups happen every month, Trujilo says November's is special.
"This is the after Thanksgiving one and it’s so nice to see that people are still feeling that Thanksgiving thankfulness and using it for going out and cleaning the park, says Trujilo. "It’s just continuing the Thanksgiving feelings,"
