War! War On Graffiti!

Front: Rep. Absalon Waki, Jr., DPS Commissioner Rebecca Warfield, Rep. Cinta Kaipat
Back: Dennis Cabrera, Daisie Camacho, Angelo Villagomez, Marites Castillo (FMI President), Kyle Kaipat

One of the projects that Beautify CNMI! indentified last year was tentatively called "War on Graffiti." We initially thought about gathering the kids and putting paint brushes in their hands and letting them paint over the graffiti. However, we thought that a better idea would be to get these kids to take ownership in these bus stops and buildings by inviting art teachers and local artists to submit mural designs to Beautify CNMI! so that we could get artists and kids to work on murals. This would be a better alternative to just painting over graffiti and, thus, creating a clean "canvas" for the graffiti monsters. Well, Beautify CNMI!'s cup runneth over, and we didn't get to this project in February.

But, this month (April), we gathered at DPS headquarters for a press conference to announce the launching of this program. You can read the MARIANAS VARIETY article here.

The following morning, Rep. Cinta Kaipat and Angelo Villagomez joined Principal Jonas Barcinas and the faculty and students of Dandan Elementary School to talk about the "War On Graffiti" Project. Dandan Elementary School was enthusiastic about getting started on the Project. Here are some pictures that were taken that day.

March 22, 2007--Dandan Elementary School Co-Adopts Dandan Rd--Pt. 2 of 6

Principal Jonas Barcinas rallying the Dandan Troops before hitting the road to join Team Chura Talo and the Beautify CNMI! crew. Rep. Cinta Kaipat's Office made arrangements with Principal Barcinas to have Dandan Elementary School team up with other Beautify CNMI! volunteers at 9 a.m. to have the students, faculty, and staff participate in their first Beautify CNMI! community cleanup. That was executed beautifully, as shown by these pictures. Rep. Kaipat also spoke with Commissioner Rebecca Warfield about sending some police officers to ensure safety while the children were out beautifying Dandan Community. Four officers were on hand to ensure that everyone was safe. Thank you, Commissioner Warfield! Thank you also Rep. Ben Seman for joining us. We're glad you could join us!It's safe to say that Dandan Elementary School was also infected with the famous Beautify CNMI! "beauty virus." Look at the following pictures and you'll see why.

Just another weekend

With the sheer volume of Beautify CNMI! activities going on every week, it is getting cumbersome keeping up with this website by myself. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the new Beautify CNMI! contributors Cinta, Bree, Bev, Walt, and Steve for helping me post pictures and tell our stories.

Event #1:

Cinta has already published a post detailing Saturday's cleanup of Koblerville. Her office and the Board of Parole were at it again. Great work!

Event #2:

Friends of the Mariana Islands (website coming soon!) also hosted a cleanup on Saturday. They removed 3000 lbs of litter from Isa Drive between the Botanical Gardens and San Vicente Elementary School. Holy cow! Thank you!

Event #3:

Also on Saturday, Mariana Islands Nature Alliance hosted their monthly cleanup of Wing Beach. The 15 volunteers from MINA, ISA CNMI, and Ecosaipan scoured the beach for tiny bits of plastic and glass littering the beach.

Some of the volunteers found a rusted out engine on the beach. It was much too heavy to move, so we left it where we found it. Here are a few more pictures:

The MINA adoption of Wing Beach has been the shining star of the Beautify CNMI Adopt-a-Spot program. Not only is MINA picking up trash every other month, but they are also paying for regular trash pickup at the beach, planting native tree species, keeping the grass along the road cut, and removing invasion vines (while under the supervision of CNMI Forestry, of course).

In the span of less than a year, MINA has turned Wing Beach into the cleanest beach in Micronesia (feel free to use that MVA). Thank you MINA for coordinating this great cleanup, ISA CNMI and Ecosaipan for providing volunteers (and for promoting our activities on your Japanese language websites), and special thanks to Brad Doerr for hauling our trash.

Event #4:

Beautify CNMI! made it to the shores of Tinian over the weekend! PSS and NMC teacher Bree Reynolds led a group of Tinian NMC students on their first beach cleanup. She reported on her weekend activities on this post. Thank you Bree and thank you NMC students!

Event #5:

Friends of the Mariana Islands hosted their fifth consecutive cleanup of Laulau Beach on Sunday. They had volunteers from Rep. Kaipat's Office and the SDA Dental Clinic. They removed 580 lbs of beach litter. Thank you, Everybody!

Event #6:

Department of Public Safety Crime Prevention Unit led some of their Law Enforement Explorer Program and Junior Police Officer students on a cleanup of Coral Ocean Point Beach. I was supposed to participate in this cleanup, but I missed it because they changed the time without telling me! The kids wanted to go swimming in the afternoon, so they did the cleanup in the morning! As I drove up, they were already loading the pickup truck with bags and bags of garbage. Thank you to the officers, the students, and their teachers from Hopwood JHS and Koblerville ES.

Event #7:

On Sunday morning, Mike Tripp and several divers participated in a cleanup of the water surrounding the Garapan Fishing Base. This was the least favorite thing I have done since I moved to Saipan in April. The water over there is NASTY. Garbage has been piling up there since WWII. Don't beleive me? When was the last time you saw a Schlitz Malt Liquor can or a Sprite glass bottle:

This event was the first Micronesia Challenge event for Beautify CNMI! It will be the first of many.

Again, thank you to every single person that is helping to make these islands a better place to live and visit. Your work is not going unnoticed.

Angelo