Alvarado Hospital employees teamed up to make the neighborhood surrounding the hospital a “litter lighter” on Sept. 30. Almost 40 employees volunteered during their lunch hour to pick up trash along Alvarado Road and Reservoir Drive – filling more than 30 trash bags and retrieviing a broken flat-screen TV that had been dumped on the side of the road.
“Caring for our community extends beyond the medical care we provide inside the hospital,” said Robin Gomez, Alvarado Hospital administrator. “We are always looking for ways to care for our community outside the hospital walls, as well.”
In addition to the “Litter Lighter Neighborhood” event, Team Alvarado raised more than $10,000 for the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk on Sept. 19. A dozen staff members also volunteered at Stand Down San Diego in July, which is a three-day event to help homeless vets and their families get back on their feet.
“Many residents stopped and thanked us for helping to make the neighborhood cleaner as we walked down the street,” said Denise Betz, who headed up the clean-up campaign. “People honked and waved and it really made our participating staff feel like they were making a difference.”
Team Alvarado plans to hit the neighborhood streets again in the winter for another clean-up.