Community members come together to pick up trash around Prunedale

On Saturday, a man in Prunedale took action into his own hands, after taking notice to the amount of trash left alongside city streets.

Event organizer and volunteer with Monterey County Parks, John Zollo, recruited others to join him in cleaning up the area by creating a facebook page.

He said he was tired of seeing his city dirty.

“I was checking out the roadways with all the trash and everything everywhere, and I was getting pretty disgusted. I was almost to the point of embarrassed to tell people where I live just because of all the trash,” said Zollo.

Daniel Thompson was one of the 2 dozen people that volunteered to pick up trash over the weekend.

The group cleaned up on streets and inside ditches.

Thompson said that before they arrived the area was in horrible condition.

“We can’t depend on government to take care of everything for us. We as a community need to come out and take care of ourselves, when it’s something that we can accomplish together,” said Zollo.

Zollo said the group picked up 1,000 lbs of trash.

He said they received help from Monterey County and Health Department, who provided vests, pick up sticks, and bags to the volunteers.

It is Zollo’s goal to host cleanups like this every month.

Thompson said their job is far from over, but he thinks the event was a success.

It makes me proud to be in Prunedale,” said Thompson.