Our community needs green spaces and access to affordable healthy food!

The Spring Valley Cleanup Crew was founded in 2020 to directly resolve environmental justice issues facing the Spring Valley community. Initially, we solely cleaned up specific areas where large buildups of trash existed. In doing so we quickly realized that our cause necessitated greater actions. We have since expanded our efforts to include food and supply distribution to people without homes, voter registration drives, school supply drives, collaborations with local activist groups, and political advocacy. 

We have a strong presence at Spring Valley’s Climate Action Plan meetings, Parks and Recreation Meetings, Community Town Halls, and Planning Group meetings where we advocate for our community’s health, safety, and well being. In doing so, we were successful in adding “More Community Gardens” to the county’s 20-21 and 21-22 PLDO Project Lists. 

Although the county plans to open a community garden at Ildica Park, the twenty planter boxes will not be enough to feed everyone in Spring Valley, home to over 40,000 community members. 

Spring Valley is a food desert and has the highest rates of obesity in the county! 

This is due to a lack of affordable and healthy fresh food options. 

San Diego County is aware of these injustices, which is why they have listed our home as one of only four environmental justice communities in the county. Again, the twenty additional planter boxes will not be enough to feed everyone here. 

Because there aren’t affordable healthy fresh food options in Spring Valley, many of us have to travel out of our area to get properly nourished. Due to the poor public transportation and lack of bike lanes in Spring Valley, more and more cars are being driven in and out of our area, causing us to breathe toxic fumes and spend an exorbitant amount of time and money just getting to grocery stores.

Many of us in Spring Valley don't have access to private transportation or have the space to grow a private garden, but we still deserve to have access to affordable and healthy fresh food. 

In addition to these compounding issues, we are unincorporated and aren’t able to ask a local city council or mayor to represent us. 

This is why we’re asking San Diego County to build two additional community gardens in Spring Valley. 

We need one at Lamar County Park and another in the dirt area between Kempton Street and the football field. 

The garden in Lamar County Park would help to serve those living in the Bancroft area. This garden would be located next to apartment complexes and mobile home communities. We’re hoping to build the garden in the grass area on the west side of the park (an area that currently isn’t being utilized.) The land already belongs to the county, so it should be fairly easy for them to build a garden. By adding this additional garden, San Diego County can come closer to meeting the Climate Action Plan Goals they themselves set. 

The Garden next to Kempton Street would serve those living in the La Presa area. This garden would be located next to two Title I schools (STEAM Academy and Kempton Literacy Academy), the Spring Valley Rec Center, Spring Valley Teen Center, Spring Valley Library, governmental housing, and the surrounding community. The current dirt strip is unused and is property of the La Mesa Spring Valley School District. We are writing this in hopes that the LMSVSD will sell the small piece of land to San Diego County, so it can be used as a community garden and educational resource for all of us living here. 

County of Environmental and Climate Justice’s Roadmap states they “will ensure that the County government’s efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emission and addressing food justice, transportation equity, the protection of civil rights in emergency planning, and the full range of environmental hazard protections for EJ communities are present in the San Diego region’s collective efforts.”