The Los Medanos College Lake received some TLC in the form of a clean-up effort put on by the ROTORACT Club. While club president Lucas Stuart-Chilcote spearheaded the effort, several others, including community passersby, helped with the clean up.

The event took place Friday, Nov. 3 and focused on removing trash from the lake in an effort to make it a more attractive and essential part of the school.  

“It seems like it’s not seen as part of the campus,” said Stuart-Chilcote, “people see it as just ‘the lake’ and not ‘The LMC Lake’ you know?”

The volunteers used five gallon buckets and trash grabbers to pull the trash from the lake, the buckets were filled again and again with the garbage pulled from the lake, wrappers, bottles and plastic were some of the most common retrievals. Stuart-Chilcote was grateful for the materials he received to clean the lake, specifically to Lead Grounds Worker/Gardener Mike Smith.

“Mr. Smith was able to let us borrow nine five gallon buckets and six trash grabbers, and Gus Gustavo is the man who took care of delivering the tables, chairs and trash bins,” Stuart-Chilcote said. “Big props to everyone who has helped us do this.”

The set-up of the event was small, a few tables and chairs served as a staging area for the small group of volunteers to gather, marked with a scarlet ROTORACT Club banner.

One of the volunteers for the clean up was AGS club member Cesar Ramirez. Ramirez shared his concerns about the lake’s previous aura, explaining a time when the area was more welcoming.

“I just felt bad for the lake,” said Ramirez as he fished a two liter soda bottle out of the lake, “if it was much cleaner than this, you would see more people walking or jogging around the lake.”

Stuart-Chilcote felt strongly about continued efforts through ROTORACT to make the lake a nicer place to be.  

“It seems really prone to trash,” he said “We’re trying to do this each semester, I’m trying to give the club a legacy.”