Volunteers gathered to pick up goose poop at a Foster City park Saturday afternoon, getting their hands dirty to help out their community.
The event, organized by city Councilmember Stacy Jimenez, cleaned up poop at Leo J Ryan Memorial Park, which over 100 Canadian geese have made their home.
Jimenez organized the cleanup because the pile-up of poop has created a health risk. She emphasized on Facebook that the city was not sponsoring the event.
Last year, the city council proposed a solution to the problem: killing the geese. It was a plan that faced pushback from some elected leaders like San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa and activists like Erik Allen, the founder of Let the Geese Live.
The council later decided not to pursue the lethal course of action
To help alleviate the poop problem, Jimenez put together the event with poop cleaning kits and invited volunteers to stick around after for a pop-up food truck event.
“Today’s event really was really just making the community aware that we have this issue going on,” said Jimenez. “And it’s going to take a lot of us. It’s not just a simple culling of the geese or saving the geese. We all have to come together to try different things at different times.”
The people who joined the cleanup were happy to see the non-lethal solution in action.
“It’s awesome, it’s good to see a lot of people help out,” said Allen
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After the event, Jimenz posted on Facebook: “Heart and mind blown away!”
She then thanked everyone who came out, including Foster City Mayor Jon Froomin, and wrote that she planned to repeat the event. The next cleanup is set for September 9.