Nearly 300 turn out for cleanup event at Clark County Wetlands Park

The sun peeked from behind high, gray clouds Saturday morning, its rays reflected and scattered by broken glass littering the desert landscape at Clark County Wetlands Park.

Nearly 300 volunteers, including state Sen. Mark Manendo and county Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, walked amid the shattered bottles, picking up trash and painting over graffiti at the Sunrise Trailhead.

With the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on Monday, the cleanup — also billed as an MLK day of service — coincided nicely because “it’s a time when a lot of people are motivated to go out and volunteer,” said the park’s recreation cultural specialist, Crystalaura Jackson.

Several boys with Cub Scout Pack 313 poked through the brush, dragging rakes behind them and using extended grabbers to pick debris out of the dirt.

“We come out and ride our bikes and hike,” said 10-year-old Charlie Peters, who had been picking up glass with his dad.

“Once we launched rockets here,” his little brother, 7-year-old Benjamin Peters, interjected.

Benjamin struggled to keep a black trash bag over his shoulder, and his older brother fiddled with a wooden rake. While the boys were there primarily to get their community service badges, they believed in the cause of the cleanup.

“I think the reason is to keep the animals safe and all that,” Charlie said.

“And a lot of animals might think the trash is food and then might eat it and then get sick and die,” Benjamin interrupted again.

Mike Peters, the boys’ father, said he tries to teach them to “leave it better than you found it.”

Saturday’s event was part of the Wetlands Hands On program, which offers volunteer stewardship opportunities on the second Saturday of most months, said Elizabeth Bickmore, park program administrator. Project partners include Outside Las Vegas Foundation and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

“Because it’s located on the edge of town at the end of the street, it’s often a target for vandalism,” Bickmore said of the Sunrise Trailhead, one of four trailheads at the 2,900-acre park in the east Las Vegas Valley. “That’s where people go to get away from prying eyes.

“We want people to take ownership in their park, and that’s why we get volunteers out here,” she said.

Kristen Taylor, a 34-year-old interior designer for MGM Grand, said she found the event through a list of volunteer opportunities at her work.

“My new year’s resolution was to volunteer more,” Taylor said as she used a paint roller to cover graffiti on a shade structure .

On the opposite side of the same pole was Kelly Choy, a 30-year-old nurse, who said she was inspired by her friend’s New Year’s resolution spelled out in the hashtag, “#365daysofopportunity.”

Choy, who was born and raised in Las Vegas but had never ventured to the Wetlands Park before Saturday’s event, said the hashtag is about “doing new things and doing what we can to help the community.”

“We’re just having fun on a Saturday, enjoying Las Vegas,” she said.

The trailhead — a nearly 8-mile drive from the park’s visitor center — has been closed since August to make improvements, but park staff hope to reopen the trailhead soon, Bickmore said.

Chig Foley, a 66-year-old volunteer who has lived in Las Vegas for 17 years, said he remembers when the park didn’t exist and the only people using the wetlands were homeless people in tents and pickup drivers dumping trash.

“It’s giving people a bit of ownership, a sense of inclusion,” Foley said of the park’s volunteer programs. Foley, a Nevada Naturalist volunteer, also participates in Wetlands Watch, a program encouraging park frequenters to report graffiti or trash and to inform other visitors about park rules.

“The park is not somebody else’s; it is theirs,” Foley said of Saturday’s crew. “And maybe in that way, (volunteering) gives them a little more appreciation of helping keep it clean.”

Anthony Turner, 35, took part in the cleanup effort with the local graduate chapter of his fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma. His fraternity’s national chapter made building and maintaining parks a priority last year, he said.

“You’re always supposed to get involved with your community. You’re the ones that help it get better and help it grow and improve,” Turner said. “You can’t complain if you’re not out there putting in the work.”

Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com. Follow @lauxkimber on Twitter.