Jill Mather, president and founder of Volunteers Cleaning Communities (VCC) (left in photo) spoke at the club's May 10 meeting. Jill said, "VCC is a community-based nonprofit focused on helping make the world around us a better, cleaner, environmental friendly, and litter-free place. With the help of amazing community volunteers, we organize cleaning events to clean our local streets of litter and through the Adopt A Highway Program we clean a 3½ mile section of the 118 Freeway from the on and off ramps of Tampa to the on and off ramps of Balboa Blvd. on both the north and south sides.""We clean illegal dumping sites, abandoned homeless encampments, our adopted section of the LA River (between Owensmouth and Winnetka), the Sepulveda Basin (Haskell Creek) and various train tracks. We have the Adopt 1 Street program for those individuals who cannot join groups because of time restraints or physical issues. We have school programs where we educate, lead clean ups and organize beautification events and to give school volunteer credits."
"We host an annual Environmental Awareness Day event at the Chatsworth Train Depot that is similar to a street fair but revolves around environmental and volunteer opportunities for community members. We are always creating new events in order to get community members involved in their community cleaning or beautifying. Examples are Litter Awareness Days, Clean an Entire Street from the 118 to Ventura Blvd in 2 hours, Ventura Blvd. Earth Day, Clean Up from Universal Studios to Valley Circle event; Litter Scavenger Hunt in Local Parks, etc.