The Great American Clean-up

El Paso is one of the most scenic places to live in the United States. Our desert landscapes and soaring mountains give us year-round beauty and breathtaking views. But sometimes we do have some windy days (or months), which often leave trash strewn throughout our streets and across our natural spaces.

Next month, Keep El Paso Beautiful will hold the Great American Clean-up. On Saturday April 4, we will have the opportunity to get out, enjoy our open space and take pride in our community by helping to pick up some of the trash and debris that gets blown about by the wind or careless litterbugs.

Here is the press release from KEPB. I hope you are able to take part in this effort.

CALLING ALL NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS, ENVIROMENTAL STEWARDS, & COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS
SPRING IS AROUND THE CORNER
TIME TO CLEAN-UP NOT ONLY YOUR CLOSETS BUT YOUR COMMUNITY TOO!

JOIN THOUSANDS OF VOLUNTEERS ACROSS THE COUNTRY TAKING PRIDE IN THEIR COMMUNITIES ON
SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2009
FOR THE
GREAT AMERICAN CLEAN-UP (GAC)
CALL THE OFFICE OF KEPB @ 546.6742 TO REGISTER YOUR CLEAN-UP SITE
ALL SUPPLIES FOR THE GAC ARE AVAILABLE AT KEPB COMMUNITY TOOL SHEDS
LOCATED AT FIRE DEPARTMENTS THROUGHOUT EL PASO

FIRESTONE HAS, ONCE AGAIN, JOINED OUR EFFORTS TO KEEP EL PASO BEAUTIFUL ALL EIGHT FIRESTONE LOCATIONS WILL BE EXCEPTING TIRES TO DISPOSE OF THEM PROPERY DURING THE GREAT AMERICAN CLEAN-UP

Keep El Paso Beautiful (KEPB) in partnership with the El Paso Fire Department, Environmental Services Department, El Paso Street Department, Neighborhood Services and Community Volunteers are working together towards a cleaner, healthier, and safer El Paso.
El Pasoans now more than ever want to do their part to improve not only their own community, but our planet. Keep El Paso Beautiful is reminding environmental stewards of all ages and walks of life that Green Starts Here, with each volunteer and group that joins in to participate in the 2009 Great American Cleanup.

The Great American Cleanup in El Paso is scheduled to take place on Saturday April 4, 2009. The 2009 Great American Cleanup reminds individuals and families that a better environment for us all starts in our own communities and the volunteer work we do close to home affects our entire planet. Thousands of volunteers in El Paso will gather during the Great American Cleanup to rid our streets, waterways and public spaces of litter and illegal dumpsites. We’re greening up parks, schoolyards and other public spaces, hosting educational events, removing graffiti and much more.

REDUCE YOUR USE - THERE IS NO EXCUSE
Katherine Gunter- Palafox
Executive Director/Keep El Paso Beautiful
915.472.2985

Calling all teenagers! You are invited to join the MAYOR'S 100 TEENS.

FACT SHEET

Purpose: The Mayor’s 100 Teens draws attention to the many ways in which teenagers make El Paso County a better place. The program focuses on heralding the achievements of youth who do not routinely receive recognition but who nonetheless make a difference in unique, personal ways. Teens who have overcome adversity, provided service to others, achieved something significant and who lead by example deserve to be honored. In recognizing them, the program intends to inspire more teens to higher levels of service and accomplishment.


Nomination Forms: Teachers, counselors, family (but not parents) and any others who recognize an individual’s spirit, drive, and accomplishments may nominate teens currently in grades 9, 10 or 11. It cannot be a teen currently in the 11th grade graduating early. We are requesting that nominators consult with the individual on their interest to pursue this opportunity before submitting the application as the selected teen will have to commit himself/herself to various events and activities. All nomination applications must be typed, handwritten applications will NOT be considered. Preferable method of nomination application submission is via email to nunezdx@elpasotexas.gov. Nomination applications are available at the Mayor’s web site (http://www.elpasotexas.gov/mayor/teens.asp), all city and county high schools at the counselors’ office, libraries, Police Regional Command Centers and a variety of other community locations. Please call Diana Nuñez at (915) 541-4015 for more information. Nomination application period opens on Monday, February 23, 2009 and closes on Friday, March 27, 2009.


Selection Process: Nominations for The Mayor’s 100 Teens are thoroughly reviewed by a committee of educators, community leaders, business people and representatives from youth organizations. Notification is made to selected teens in May.


Public Recognition: Each October, The Mayor’s 100 Teens are introduced and honored in a celebratory public event. A commemorative book that tells the story of each teen is published. Members of The Mayor’s 100 Teens accompany the Mayor to numerous public appearances, participate in community projects and groups and make public presentations throughout the year.

Sunday Meditations

On Sundays, I like to lay on the couch and drink coffee and read the New York Times from the beginning to the end. It's a nice way to relax but also think through what's going on in the world. My dad recently sent me two other items to put into the Sunday mix. I'm passing them along to you. Maybe, like me, you like to spend your Sundays daydreaming and thinking through things.

The first is a music video from a group called Playing for Change. I'm not going to explain it here. It explains itself.

The second is from a radio program called This American Life that airs on NPR. The program is called "The Global Pool of Money," and it takes you through all the forces that came to bear in the recent crisis of the housing and mortgage market. To get to the full episode, click on "Full Episode" on the menu that runs along the left side of the screen. The radio program makes the crisis easier to understand because it introduces you to people who were operating at every level of housing bubble (the borrowers, the lenders, the brokers, the loan bundlers, the Wall Street investors buying bundles and selling them up the chain, etc.)

So some things to chew on on a Sunday afternoon.

Bye-Bye ASARCO

We got word yesterday that ASARCO has decided not to re-open the El Paso Smelter. This is good news and something we--neighborhood advocates, environmentalists, business people and elected leaders--have all been working hard to accomplish for our region. We will work to make sure that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality operating permit for ASARCO is formally withdrawn and that ASARCO sets aside sufficient funds to clean up their site.

About a year and a half ago, almost 1,000 El Pasoans gathered for a photo called Faces Against ASARCO. Our goal was to send a message to the rest of Texas that our economy, our health and our quality of life depended on ASARCO staying closed. As part of that photo shoot, we waved good bye to ASARCO. It was a hope then. Maybe today, it is something we can depend on.

Photography by Robert Ardovino.

NEIGHBORHOOD: What My Mother Taught Me About Dreaming Big

Note: These are my mother's words. Lee Byrd. She and I spoke at the Ysleta Independent School District Mother Daughter conference last week. My mother is a writer, editor and the co-publisher at Cinco Puntos Press. My speech follows hers.

Maybe you’re one of those people who dream about changing the world. I know I am. I know my daughter Susie Byrd is, too. In fact, when she was your age, she dreamed about becoming president of the United States. She was going to put an end to the death penalty. She talked about it a lot.

She was dreaming big which is a very good thing.

Dreaming big is, in fact, really important. But there are times in your life when your big dreams may get in the way of your seeing the treasure that’s right in front of you. I learned this from my mother, who was one heck of a big dreamer. Let me tell you about her.

My mother was born in 1906, in a little town outside of Boston, Massachusetts. If she were alive today, she would be 102.

My mother was a red head, an adventurous kid, full of ideas and experiments, always thinking of crazy things for her friends to do and hanging around with kids who were dumb enough to do them. Her father was from Scotland and made his living as a gardener so there wasn’t a whole lot of money for her to dream big with. But a doctor who lived close by must have noticed that my mother was a big dreamer and that there was something about her that would go far, because he decided to pay for her to go to Boston University. So in the early 1920s, when most women didn’t get past high school, my mother graduated from Boston University with a degree in business.

Ma taught school until 1935 when she met my father Eustace Merrill. They moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, and had us four kids. She raised us. She cared for us when we were sick, fixed our meals, took care of our house, shed tears over us when we failed and told everyone when we did well.

And it was there in that house where I grew up, that my mother taught us about neighborhood, about being a neighbor, about being involved in a community, especially the community that is right in front of you. My mother knew everyone in the neighborhood, she knew their kids. Through Ma, we knew everyone too. She lent things to the neighbors and she turned around and borrowed from them. She invited them over to play Scrabble, or to play cards, or for dinner or for her annual neighborhood Christmas party. And she and Dad went over to visit them, got to know them. The kids in the neighborhood played in our back yard because it was big and had a paved driveway and a basketball net and a long-roped swing underneath a huge oak tree.

Oh, she had her dreams, my mother did. Just like the rest of us, she had big dreams. But those dreams became real in the little things she did, in the very place where she chose to do them, there in our neighborhood.

My mother’s sense of neighborhood has been a blessing to me, a blessing and a legacy. In 1978, after moving from Alamosa, Colorado to Albuquerque and then Las Cruces, New Mexico, my husband and I and our three kids finally settled in El Paso, in a red brick bungalow on Louisville Street, right off Piedras, right down from the House of Pizza. We were so sick of moving that we decided that house on Louisville Street was just fine and we weren’t going to move again. And we’ve been there 30 years.

Almost right away, I wanted a neighborhood like the one I grew up in—not one that looked like my old New Jersey neighborhood, but one that felt like it. A community, a place where I knew everyone and they knew me. But how to go about making friends? I tried one lady across the street, someone about my age with kids about our kids’ age, but she didn’t seem too interested in knowing me. Maybe she hadn’t grown up in a real neighborhood herself—you know, a lot of people nowadays really don’t want to know their neighbors which I think is a real shame.

But there was another person down the street, a woman in her 30s who had mental retardation. Her name was Isabel. She thought she was nine years old. When she saw us unpacking our truck, she came down to visit right away. She saw our kids and decided they were perfect companions. And so she was at our house every day, playing with our kids—and what a treasure they thought she was: someone who looked like an adult but who had fun like a kid.

Through Isabel, I came to know her mother Benita and then her four brothers and two sisters and their families. Isabel’s father Lalo was friends with Mr. Acosta on the corner. Through Lalo, we met the Acosta family.

At night when we sat on our front porch, looking out at the lights of Juarez, we heard music. The Coulahans from across the street were sitting on their porch and listening to classical music.

There was a middle-aged bachelor next door, Art, and he liked to come out on his front porch late at night and sing old Elvis songs and he liked to sit in his living room and curse at the Dallas Cowboys when they weren’t playing very well. We could hear him from our porch.

Mrs. Pino was the neighborhood busybody. She had opinions about everyone’s house and yard, ours included, and she came over to tell us about them.

And so one house at a time, a neighborhood grew up around us. Some neighbors have moved, some have stayed, their children all grown up and coming back to visit us. They always stop in to say hi. The lady across the street who wasn’t interested in being friends with me moved, but not before we became really good friends. In her place came a woman named Terry Martinez who introduced me to Martha Garza on the corner. The three of us walked in the mornings and they taught me how to make friends by sharing all the small details of their lives. And then, the greatest thing of all, Susie and her husband Eddie and our grandkids moved into the house of the middle-aged bachelor Art when he left and so right there in the neighborhood I have all the great treasures of life: family, children, grandkids, dear friends and good good neighbors. When I think of the dreams I’ve dreamed, none could have been much better than watching this neighborhood become a reality.

And so I dream big in a small place, but I’m not constrained. And I want to encourage you to do the same: dream big, but never neglect the life and the people that God has put in front of you.