Cleanup volunteers spring into action

Costa Mesa’s Canyon Community Park is looking spiffy thanks to the hundreds of volunteers who gave up their Saturday morning to participate in the Neighbors for Neighbors spring cleanup.

Saturday’s event was the 26th annual Neighbors for Neighbors cleanup, a bi-annual opportunity for Costa Mesa residents to help clean up the community they live in.

Crews made up mostly of young volunteers, along with adults, came together Saturday morning to plant flowers, pull weeds and pick up trash in Canyon Park.

“It makes Costa Mesa a better place to live and work,” said Jacqueline Reeves, director of the Neighbors for Neighbors cleanup.

The Costa Mesa-based Save Our Youth organization brought 80 volunteers to the cleanup. Save Our Youth volunteers have taken part in the Neighbors for Neighbors events for the past 10 years, logging more than 1,000 hours of service for the project, said Save Our Youth director Trevor Murphy.

“It is just giving them some pride and some ownership of their public spaces,” Murphy said of the kids’ participation.

Estancia High School student Yoari Lopez, 17, planted flowers at the cleanup Saturday.

“It is a lot of work, but it’s fun,” Yoari said.

Boy Scouts Stephen Denghausen, Tal Kirk and Jack Ahearn from Costa Mesa troop 711, helped out Saturday as part of their required service hours.

“The community gave us so much support and good things ? we want to give back,” Stephen, 13, said.

The volunteers’ work really made a difference, said Eric Quinill, a Costa Mesa parks department employee.

“They’ve done an absolutely wonderful job,” Quinill said.

Canyon Park, which is near West 19th Street and Placentia Avenue, is difficult to maintain because of its size, Quinill said.dpt.30-cleanup-1-CPhotoInfoLR1QFLE920060430iyi7sincMARK DUSTIN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Orange Coast College student Tim Bonnett of Huntington Beach puts a bag off weeds into the back of a truck during Saturday’s cleanup project at Canyon Community Park in Costa Mesa.