Papago Park event set for Saturday on World Clean Up Day

World Cleanup Day is making a return on Saturday and Arizonans are ready to help clean their local parks and neighborhoods.

Arizona is home to 22 National Parks and hundreds of municipal parks and is a common destination for hikers and sightseers.

Papago Park is one of the more recognizable parks in the state, with thousands of residents and visitors hiking the 1,500 acres of land annually.

With so many people visiting the park, trash and damage to the park is commonplace.

Kelli Cholieu is an avid hiker and has been a frequent visitor to the park for years.

In 2020, Cholieu saw a huge uptick in trash and realized the cities of Tempe and Phoenix were too focused on the COVID-19 pandemic to fix the issue.

To combat the growing trash problem, Cholieu and her partners created Clean Up Papago (C.U.P.).

Their goal with the organization is simple: Preserve the park so future generations can enjoy the beautiful views and rock structures.

“We've been focusing a lot on trash cleanup, reporting graffiti to the cities for removal, because there is a lot of history, Native American history in the area, and we want to make sure that the ruins, rocks, and geology are respected,” Cholieu says.

But the mission goes beyond cleaning trash from the park. Cholieu wants to educate the public on sustaining a clean environment.

“Our passion goes well beyond trash removal and goes more into educating people not to litter in the parks and preserves,” Cholieu says. “Also replanting efforts to make sure vegetation doesn't die off since our summers are slowly getting hotter and longer.”

The World Clean Up Day event will bring up to 75 volunteers together to help clean the park. Volunteers will receive free food and coffee, along with the chance to win a raffle.

Papago Park is unique because of its placement between two major cities: Tempe and Phoenix.

On the Tempe side, the park is a preserve. On the Phoenix side, the park is unprotected.

While getting the park legally protected is a huge step in preserving the park, it also allows for more legal red tape to stand in the way.

“There's more rules you have, there's more guidelines. So where we can speak with the city of Phoenix, and say ‘Okay, let's fix this trail a month from now,’” Cholieu says. “(With) the city of Tempe, it's a longer process because you have to think about the history aspect of it, the Native American aspect of it. Are we respecting the preserve in the way a preserve needs to be respected?”

On the other hand, Tempe’s reserve status for the park has allowed for more significant cleanup on the Tempe side.

“As of last April, we've picked up over 10,000 pounds of trash, and the majority of that has been out of Papago Park, Tempe side.”

For Cholieu and the rest of C.U.P., they hope that their organization can inspire people to help keep their parks clean, no matter how big or small.

“Our feeling is such that even if we had 100 people volunteer, if even one person is inspired to weather a clean up at their local park or around their neighborhood, then we feel like we made a difference in our organization,” Cholieu says. “At the end of the day, I think it comes down to just educating and helping people you know to care more about our wild spaces.”

To register for the event, visit the Eventbrite page.