As the sun rises over Livermore in the morning, a group of volunteers can be seen starting their day by pulling out weeds, picking up trash, and cleaning up the Alameda Creek watershed.  

These volunteers are not part of just another typical volunteering club. Rather, as close-knit members of Save the Bay, they specifically focus on raising awareness of environmental problems and cleaning up the environment, one volunteer event at a time.

“The purpose of our club is to raise awareness about some of the grave environmental problems that occur right where we live and to encourage young students to make a difference and do something that will not only benefit themselves, but everyone else as well,” senior club secretary Elisa Gonzalez said.

While many students would prefer to spend their day sleeping, hanging out with friends or catching up on homework over cleaning up trash, volunteering with Save the Bay can be a satisfying experience.

“What’s most rewarding is when we finish our work, we can see the difference we made and how much we helped the place we call home, and that is the best feeling ever,” Gonzalez said.

Mrs. Alissa Dreon, the club advisor, supervises the students and typically lets them “run the show.”

“The members and officers of the club are passionate about saving the environment. They are very welcoming to new members of the club,” Dreon said. “Students are aware of a problem and are making an impact through awareness and action — I love the mission of the club.”

To some, given how big a problem environmental pollution is, cleaning up a few rivers may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things. However, these volunteers are making impacts.

“We plan to tackle this problem with small, but sure steps,” Gonzalez shares. “One event at a time, one organization at a time, we will encourage our club members to attend as many environmental clean up events as they can so they can learn first hand of the issues we are facing.”

Shoveling out dirt and sticks in the water doesn’t need to be a tedious task. Save the Bay officers continuously promote club bonding so everyone can have an enjoyable time.

“We strongly encourage club bonding events so when we volunteer together, everyone will have a good time with their friends,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve had a couple club bonding events this year, one being we got to design our own club T-shirt’s and tie-dye them together.”

This year, all the club officers are seniors and they’re looking for other students to carry on the mission of the club. Whether or not this is the club’s last year, its officers and members plan on continuing to help our environment.

“We are all proud of what we have done to benefit our environment already, and we will all continue to do that in college and life beyond our schooling,” Gonzalez said.