Barack H. Obama made community service a cornerstone of his
campaign to become the 44th president of the United States.
Barack H. Obama made community service a cornerstone of his campaign to become the 44th president of the United States.
As our new president, he is calling on Americans from all walks of life to serve in their communities in ways they’ve never fully realized before.
“It has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor – who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom,” Obama said during his inauguration Tuesday. “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”
One Gilroyan who quietly goes about making a difference is Eric von Forstmeyer, a retired school painter-and a man with a passion for trash.
“We can’t wait for the government to do everything. It is up to us to make a difference in our own neighborhoods,” he explained of the motivation that has led him to clear the streets of Gilroy of hundreds of pounds of trash. “Even as a young person, litter always bothered me,” he continued. “Whatever you choose to do to make a difference has to be a passion motivated by giving. It has to come from the heart.”
Von Forstmeyer has volunteered in many capacities all his life. He grew up in a family which set a strong example of how to serve others. They taught him to give his seat up on a bus when an older person boarded, to give a ride to the local priest out walking on an errand, to mow the lawn of the widow down the street and to always be on the lookout for anyone in distress.
“Volunteering is a rush,” he said. “It’s a great feeling. You can actually change someone else’s life for the better. It gives you a huge feeling of accomplishment. At 68, I am still finding new projects and I can’t wait to see what the surprise is around the next corner. Volunteering keeps me motivated. It’s good for my health. It keeps me young.”
Indeed, it ought to when you consider that just one of his trash pick-up routes encompasses four miles of Monterey Road, which he walks on a regular basis.
He has several areas of Gilroy which he keeps free of litter, including 10 blocks of Forest Avenue and several miles from Rucker Avenue south to Santa Teresa Boulevard and First Street. Of course, when he walks other areas, such as along the levee, he can’t resist picking up litter he sees along the way.
“I see a change every time I watch a dirty area becoming clean again,” he said. “It’s like when I worked as a painter. The old dirty surface becomes bright and clean again. The payback is the satisfaction of seeing the transformation.
“If you see a need and approach it right, it usually creates a domino effect,” he continued. “Others want to help. I have been able to get dumps to allow me to drop off all the litter I collect free of charge. They understand what I am doing, and by helping me get rid of the trash, they become a part of the effort as well.”
“What are you doing?” passersby Alfred Lujan and his son stopped to ask on Santa Teresa Boulevard near Third Street when they spotted von Forstmeyer outfitted one afternoon with bright orange vest, litter stick, recyclable bags and gloves. Von Forstmeyer explained that he was picking up litter and recruited Lujan to join him. Now Lujan and his family regularly keep a segment of Gilroy clean of litter on Alexander and Seventh streets near the railroad tracks.
“I’m just a small piece of the pie,” von Forstmeyer said. “People don’t think they have enough time to make a difference, but if you have any spare time to give at all – even if only two hours a week, that adds up to one entire work day per month.”
“How many pounds of trash would you estimate you’ve picked up?” I asked.
“I’ve picked up about 425 bags in less than two years, and I estimate that each averages about three pounds,” he said. “So I’ve collected 1275 pounds and the bags are 32 gallon size, which measure 3.5 feet long. If laid side by side, the bags would stretch out for 1487.5 feet.”
“What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever found while collecting picking up litter off the streets of Gilroy?” I asked.
“A $10 bill that was so sun-, rain-, wind-exposed it could stand on its edge and was just thick like skin to the touch,” he said. “My bank took many minutes to examine it before they replaced it, thinking it might be counterfeit.”
“What do you most wish people knew about litter that they may not be aware of?”
“What people should be more aware of is the huge impact plastic bags have on our environment,” von Forstmeyer said. “They clog our streams and rivers and enter our oceans where they break up but never completely dissolve. Fish then eat the particles of plastic; we in turn eat the fish, and voila, we have plastic in our bodies. They tell me it takes as long as 100 years for plastic bags to completely break down on land.”
Trash drifting out to sea has become such a large problem that there is a floating mass of spread-out trash about the size of Texas in the northern Pacific Ocean, often dubbed the “the Asian Trash Trail,” the “Trash Vortex” or the “Eastern Garbage Patch.”
“We need to serve a cause greater than our own individual good,” von Forstmeyer said. “We can only solve our current problems through volunteerism. Obama would not have been elected without volunteers, and it is up to us to help him realize the dream. It is we who must usher in a new age of community service as compassionate people who can make the dream of a better America a reality.”
