Equipped with garbage bags, pails and gloves, teams of IBEW members fanned out across San Diego’s waterfront last Thursday morning to leave their glistening host city even cleaner than they found it.
The Day of Service, a proud tradition at IBEW conventions and conferences, drew more than 200 pairs of hands from across the U.S. and Canada.
“It’s been an awesome time,” said Gaston Moore, president of Bakersfield, Calif., Local 428. “All the camaraderie, the solidarity of pitching in, cleaning up the parks. It’s a lot of fun. The weather’s beautiful. You can’t ask for better.”
Moore volunteered at the Children’s Park, a grassy area and pirate-ship-themed playground across from the Convention Center and adjacent to the city’s New Children’s Museum, whose workers are represented by San Diego Local 465.
Four other teams boarded buses to bayfront locations, including Harbor Island Park north of downtown. Navigating a rocky embankment, IBEW brothers and sisters carefully removed more than 100 pounds of trash — Styrofoam, plastic, cigarette butts and other debris.
Alton Wilkerson, president of Los Angeles Local 11, even pulled an old sailor’s hat from the rocks, working in tandem with New York Local 3 member Wendell Yee. The men became close friends through RENEW/NextGen and the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus, which years ago launched the union’s first Day of Service.
“This shows that we don’t just come to put money into your city,” Yee said. “We come to brighten it up and make it a better place.”
Many volunteers remarked on the city’s overall tidiness. “Whoever’s doing it, they’re doing a good job keeping it clean,” said Dana Jones of Boston Local 103 as he hunted for litter at the Children’s Park.
He and Avery Rogers of Lansing, Mich., Local 665 were happy to pick up whatever bits and pieces they found, saying children, especially, need clean and safe outdoor spaces.
“We need our kids to go outside and play,” Rogers said. “Thirty years ago, I was outside all the time.”
At Harbor Island, Jessica Schneider of Fairbanks, Alaska, said cleanups are one of the many ways members of Anchorage-based Local 1547 give back to their communities, noting that diligence is key.
“Trash and litter are a big thing,” she said. “It’s like weight gain. It’s twice as easy to put on and it takes twice as much effort to get out and get it picked up.”
The sites were selected in partnership with I Love a Clean San Diego, a county-wide organization. As volunteers in neon-green Day of Service T-shirts swarmed each location, grateful residents took notice.
“The Children’s Park is next to a dog park, and we had people coming up with their dogs and asking who we are and what we were doing,” said Ninth District International Representative Kelly Foster. “They were very happy and very grateful that we were there.”
The largest group, some 60 delegates, headed to Embarcadero Marina Park — a third of them from Local 103. “We’re deep. We don’t play,” instructor Narica Gaskin said of the Boston-area contingent. “We want to be part of the convention. It’s a historical event, and I thought it would be pretty cool to talk about with my first-years.”
Jutting into the bay from downtown, the park’s two peninsulas offer green space, walking trails and panoramic bay views. Participants included Joel Basore, president of San Diego Local 569.
“I’m so proud and also humbled to have everyone come to our town,” Basore said. “What the IBEW stands for is not just making our own lives better but trying to do better in our communities and carry it forward.”
Another marina volunteer, Fred Ries of Chester, Pa., Local 654, said Day of Service projects are also a way of thanking host locals. “They’re putting this great convention together, and we’re giving a little bit of our time back to help the community.”
Port Park, in a busy industrial area of San Diego Bay, may have been the liveliest site, with horn blasts from tugboats filling the air and noisy trolleys and freight trains passing nearby.
Volunteers plucked litter from grassy areas, along walls separating the park from tugboat docks, and up and down the park’s long pier and rocky seawall.
One of them, Andy Starling, will become business manager of Gainesville, Fla., Local 1205 in October. Outreach like the Day of Service was one of his major goals when he launched a RENEW chapter at the local in 2018.
“A lot of people in organized labor do want to show up and help, but you need somebody to kind of lead the way and lay a path for them to follow,” he said.
The Port Park crew also featured a fifth-generation IBEW member, Donovan Reiser. He said a business agent noticed his volunteer activities and nudged him to get involved in the RENEW chapter at Jersey City, N.J., Local 164.
Whether he’s helping disabled children enjoy the beach — as he does each summer — or picking up debris on the Day of Service, he said it “hardly feels like volunteer work” when he’s having fun giving back.
Two miles north, members from as far as Montreal tackled Ruocco Park in the shadow of the aircraft carrier/museum USS Midway.
Christopher Heegan, a 47-year member of Kansas City Local 124, brought his granddaughter Kay. “I wanted to help the animals in the sea,” the 11-year-old said. “Turtles. Especially turtles.”
“We’re pretty far from the ocean at home, but she just really, really cares about the animals,” said her granddad.
Heegan spent 30 years on the tools before serving as an international and local organizer, among other roles. He’ll retire next year.
“There’s some melancholy coming here, knowing this is my last one,” he said. “That’s why I like to come to the Day of Service. It’s a way to say thank you to the hosts. I feel like I’ve given back my share.”
Adrian Hall of Tucson, Ariz., Local 570 was on cigarette-butt duty at Ruocco. Scouring garden beds, bushes and fields, volunteers collected two and a half pounds’ worth — well over 1,000 butts — and kept them separate from other garbage.
That’s because the city recycles cigarette butts in partnership with a company that turns their tiny plastic filters into park benches, pallets and other products.
After nearly 30 years as a Local 570 member, Hall is attending his first IBEW convention. He decided to come early, in particular for the Day of Service.
“I was nervous,” he said. “I know how to do service, though. I thought I would come for this. And it’s a really great way to meet brothers and sisters.”
