Volunteers remove 200 pounds of debris from Wildcat Creek in San Pablo
on October 20, 2026
Volunteers grabbed bagels, then made their way down the ravine at San Pablo’s Davis Park, where they would use trash grabbers, buckets and kitchen tongs to pick up everything from tiny bits of plastic to beer bottles and cigarette butts from the dry bed of Wildcat Creek.
About 40 people pitched in at the 32nd annual Wildcat Creek Cleanup Saturday, which was organized by San Pablo and KIDS for the BAY, a group that connects kids with nature. The cleanup has drawn volunteers to the creek every year since 1994, after a group of third-graders pushed for it. More than half of those helping this year were part of Earth Team, an organization that promotes environmentalism in schools.
“The world has a lot of litter in it,” said Amalia Feria, a student at Oakland’s Skyline High School and an Earth Team intern. “Helping the most I can is the best thing I can do.”
According to Isabel Cabrera, KIDS for the BAY program coordinator and environmental educator, the idea for the cleanup came from a Dover Elementary School teacher who noticed trash polluting the creek during a field trip at Wildcat Creek in the early 1990s. She and her class reached out to the city to launch the first cleanup.
For KIDS for the BAY, the cleanup has become a longstanding collaboration with the city.
“Thirty years of partnership, that’s a lot of planning,” Cabrera said. “We know exactly how to set this up and engage the communities and engage students.”
For Itzel Gomez, San Pablo’s environmental program analyst, the work is personal.
“I grew up in San Pablo,” Gomez said, “so it’s really great now working for the city and actually getting to directly impact the community.”
Cabrera said cleanup events create a connection to a place and the land, as well as enable people to see the extent that plastics, among other things, are polluting the places they love.
Volunteers removed 200 pounds of litter from the creek this year. Darius Roffe, an Earth Team campus coordinator, said students should feel proud of that.
“I love hearing the students come back with their families later in the year when they get to see the water flowing and knowing that they removed all that litter before the rain came.” he said.
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