(Pictured left to right, Front Row: Betty Crockford, Catherine O’Brien, Joyce Ownbey, Ramon Matthews, Marco Grajeda; Second Row: Lloyd Crockford, Jim Adams, Dave Newland, Stu Matthews, Luca Grajeda, Mags Matthews, Ixchel Matthews, Alexa Hauser; Back Row: John Abbott, Jeff Voeller, David Libby, Dave Dawson. Not shown Patricia Pratt and Randall Henry. Photo by Eric Ross)

Dear UUSS Parkway Stewards and friends,

On Saturday, March 8th, 19 of us showed up at the parking lot at the end of Northrop Avenue off of Howe for our regular monthly clean up of Mile 6 North of the Parkway (our “UU Mile”). Trash bags were handed out and grabbers were at the ready. We enjoyed relatively mild temperatures and hazy skies. Fanning out, we worked in groups to clean up our assigned area of the American River close to the church. Given the recent absence of many unhoused folks and other clean up groups on Mile 6N, we came up with quite a surprising haul (see trash in foreground of group photo above). Many large black bags were filled; We also filled a large shopping cart found out on “the loop”. Additionally, we found 4 turkey vultures cleaning up carrion in the back loop…

After an hour’s work and the group photo, many of us went over to Panera Bread and enjoyed coffee and conversation. Thanks to all for your efforts, Parkway Stewards, and welcome to Alexa Hauser, Marco Grajeda and Luca Grajeda, our newest stewards.

Our next UUSS Parkway Stewards’ Saturday cleanup is scheduled for Saturday, April 12th beginning an hour earlier, at 7:45 am so we can start our work at 8 am and end by 9 am to beat the heat and provide more time For us to enjoy the rest of our Saturday. Please consider showing up to fulfill our mission statement by participating: “We come together to deepen our lives and be a force for healing in the world.” I will send out a reminder for April Saturday’s clean up early the week of April 7th.

As noted last month: Because of problems with our List-Serve being able to deliver you Parkway Steward notifications, Dirk Tuell, our UUSS website manager, has set up a change to get them to you by having you click a link to signify that you want to join the Parkway Stewards google group email list. He has informed me of the following way to join which I strongly urge you to do to ensure getting notifications:

To join the email list click this link: https://groups.google.com/g/uussparkway

Then click “Ask to join group”. Then in the popup just click “Ask to join” (no need to enter a reason for joining). You need to be signed into google in order to join this way. If you are still having trouble, send [email address removed] an email and ask him to add you directly. But he can only add a few at a time that way. So please try the link above first on your own so you will be subscribed to the list. If you choose not to, we thank you for your interest and work with our organization which we much appreciate.

With gratitude,

Eric Ross, Mile Steward
UUSS Parkway Stewards