Dozens of volunteers gathered at Arvin City Hall Saturday morning for the city’s first-ever Earth Day clean-up and beautification event.
Armed with tools, elbow grease, and teamwork, students from Arvin High School and Grow Academy worked alongside community members to plant trees, add greenery, and clean up public spaces. Arvin Mayor Olivia Calderón joined the community effort.
"We are celebrating Earth Day here in the city of Arvin, honoring our planet by coming together. And you can see that we're planting. Mother Earth is our home, the City of Arvin is our home, and we’re going to take care of her," Olivia Calderón said.
Avanza Arvin, a student-led community organization, partnered with the city to help organize the event. Esmeralda Ramos, a senior at Arvin High School and member of the group, noted that this is just the beginning. The organization plans to expand volunteer efforts across the city, including park clean-ups and graffiti removal.
"We want people to feel ownership of their community, and by bringing people together to help beautify the city hall, which is their city hall, we want them to feel welcome. We want people to know that we take care of one another, and we want to bring people together to make more future events like these," Esmeralda Ramos said.
"But to bring people together, and they feel like they can have fun and they can cultivate friendships here, it’s amazing to see," Ramos said.
City leaders noted that seeing young people show up on a Saturday morning to give back is a powerful reminder of what makes Arvin special. The city plans to continue hosting similar events throughout the year to keep Arvin clean, green, and connected.
"It inspires me. And this is why I know that our future is bright, that our city is strong, that we are going to do great things here in the City of Arvin, because of our students, because of our parents, because of who we are as a community. We’re awesome," Calderón said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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