Youth Venture

Our team of youth volunteers will cleanup trashy and junky areas of the Oak Park community in Sacramento, CA that are a community blight and eyesore.

Our team consists of youth volunteers in the Oak Park community in Sacramento, CA. The Clean-Up Crew will help beautify and clean blighted areas to make living in the Oak Park area less depressing and more livable. The work of the Clean-Up Crew will help revitalize the community.

After moving to the Oak Park area of Sacramento from the affluent Greenhaven area, the team leader noticed the difference in the two areas. The Oak Park community was less maintained and had trash in its streets, under overpasses, vacant lots, and common areas. He noticed that the attitude in Oak Park was more depressing due to the trashy streets. Other more maintained and clean areas of Sacramento made its residents feel better and have more community pride.

Meleke decided to form a team of volunteers to try to do something to beautify and clean up the area, so people would not feel like they live in a "garbage can", (so to speak). The Clean-Up Crew was formed with the intent to go out on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to clean up some of the trashy areas.

The team consists of Oak Park youth who see trashy and junk-filled vacant lots, trash on streets, etc. on a daily basis. While walking through the neighborhood, and seeing a vacant lot that we wanted to play football in, but couldn't, we decided that we should do something about it. Fortunately this youth venture program came to my attention to aid us in our team's efforts.