SANTA ANA – Life on Evergreen Street is a daily struggle, residents say.
Gang members conduct drug transactions openly in this tree lined neighborhood with jacaranda trees and high-density apartments. Graffiti markings are on alley walls, fences and in the middle of the street.
“Bullets fly here,” said Cristina Arrendondo, a 42-year-old mother of six kids. “When I’m not around or working, I take my kids upstairs at my mother’s apartment.”
On Saturday, Arrendondo, her children and about 800 volunteers fought back as best they could, with paint brushes, sandpaper and shovels, erasing eyesores and beautifying the neighborhood surrounding Evergreen and Cedar streets.
The goal, said city Councilman David Benavides, who helped organize the effort, is “to bring a sense of hope and a vitality by way of painting murals, planting trees, neighborhood clean up.”
The project was led by Corporate Volunteer Council of Orange County and nonprofit OneOC. Employees from Disneyland, Pacific Life, and Taco Bell, and other corporations teamed up with local community groups to benefit a local chapter of KidWorks, a nonprofit that conducts after-school programs and other services for children in Santa Ana.
“Our commitment is to restore at-risk neighborhoods one life at a time … with the goal of transforming the neighborhood,” said Benavides, who also is KidWork’s executive director.
At an alley way on Evergreen Street and Edinger Avenue, volunteers wearing yellow shirts from Love Santa Ana Initiative, a church-based group, created a mural of a vine. Others from United Way planted trees on the sidewalks.
Across the street at Madison Park, UPS volunteers handed out new shoes to members of the community, and those volunteering at Madison Elementary School drew a large mural of school children with smiling faces and carrying signs that says, “School is Cool” and “Madison is #1.”
Emanuel Gonzalez, 34, painted a black fence laden with graffiti and rust. He had just painted over a bullet hole, he said.
Gonzalez doesn’t live in the neighborhood, but understands that change comes slowly.
“The way the culture is, they don’t ask for help. They are very prideful,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not until we take a stand and do something about it, that’s when the [community members] start coming out and having trust.”
This is the fourth time the volunteer council and OneOC teamed up for a service project. They cleaned up the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach in 2013, sorted and packed food boxes at the Second Harvest Food Bank in 2014, and helped build a playground in Anaheim last year.
The volunteers know that Saturday’s cleanup and beautification may be fleeting. But, Benavides said, “It’s a spark. Today is sending a message that this community, which has been plagued with a lot of challenges, does not stand alone. That hundreds of people believe in them, love them and are committed to supporting them.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-2443 or jpimentel@ocregister.com or follow on Twitter @OCDisney
