A local nonprofit called Serve Santa Maria is helping the city gather volunteers for cleanup and paint projects, including one tomorrow that will take volunteers to city parks, elementary schools and more.
Pastor Carl Neilsen founded Serve Santa Maria in 2009. He brought high school volunteers from his church to a National Lutheran Youth gathering in New Orleans. It was just four years after Hurricane Katrina, and the community was still being heavily impacted by the natural disaster.
“I had no idea how devastated the community still was four years later. And so you can imagine 38,000 high school kids and chaperones doing things in the community every day. It was amazing,” Nielsen said.
He said after he saw what a group of volunteers could do for others, he knew this is what he wanted to do for the city he was living in — Santa Maria. After advocating for this at a city council meeting, he said the overwhelming response was, 'Why not?'
“The city came up with the project of painting over the graffiti underneath the Santa Maria Bridge,” he said.
Neilsen said his biggest worry was finding volunteers, but that morning over 200 people showed up to help. He said it was mind-boggling.
“Young people came down and they're rolling on the wall, and then they would touch the wall, then they would touch the T-shirt of their friend next door, and it was so fun because we were serving,” Nielsen said.
Over the years, Serve Santa Maria has focused on different projects ranging from building fences for people in residential neighborhoods to painting maps at the YMCA and elementary schools.
Nielsen said when he started to immerse himself in the community, he did not have the money to help, so all the tools and materials used were donations provided by local businesses.
“I didn't have any money, but I just said, ‘Can we paint your house?’ [I] went around and there were paint companies who gave us paint to make this happen. So in the early days, we got donations because the businesses in this community were just phenomenal,” Nielsen said.
The organization is still hosting projects. Tomorrow, they will be painting over graffiti under the Santa Maria bridge, picking up litter at various parks, coloring tetherball and hopscotch areas at elementary schools, and trimming shrubs at the La Maria mobile home community.
Check-in starts at 8:30 AM tomorrow, August 20 at the Maldonado Youth Center. More information is at servesantamaria.com.
