HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- Soaring Heights Community residents and members from the Holloman Resident Council got together and coordinated a few events to celebrate Earth Day on April 21, 2022.
The events consisted of a trash pick-up available to all residents and volunteers and a pop up table dedicated to giving community members and their families a chance to plant their own source of greenery or vegetation.
Althea Strong, Soaring Heights property manager, cites the incident from last year, where a large portion of the trees in the base community where swept up in a storm, as the top motivator for the organization of these events.
“The plan to do an Earth Day event originated from last year when the storms downed a lot of our trees on base,” she said. “We wanted to connect with the Resident Council to get the whole community together.”
With the insurance Soaring Heights had gotten back, they were able to plant double the number of trees that were lost. This second chance was the starting component for these Earth Day activities.
“We wanted to celebrate the tree groves we’ve been able to plant around base,” said Strong. “And we figured what better day to celebrate than on Earth Day?”
Earth Day is an opportunity to ignite a team building, collaborative effort in not only focusing on the problems in our environment, but to begin solving them.
Resident advocate for the 49th Wing, Christine Juedeman, was one of the main facilitators for setting up this event. With Holloman founding the first ever resident council, Juedeman has made it a top priority to find new and creative ways to engage the residential community.
“This fun-filled community clean-up event goes hand in hand with the intent of our Residential Council,” said Juedeman. “Where we are committed to establishing positive interaction to solve problems.”
Taking a day out of a busy schedule to help with trash, recycle, plant a tree or to simply honor the natural beauty is quite enough to make a big difference, says Juedeman.
And don’t worry, we can expect more events such as this out of the Soaring Heights community in the near future.
“We’ll definitely do another Earth Day event next year, and we’ll continue to do more events this year,” said Strong.
Working together and taking pride in your community, and more importantly, the Earth, is key to keeping our environment safe and clean.