How a Maple Ridge resident started a local clean-up crew

When Nikita Sharma was heading outdoors for mental health walks during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she had an idea.

“I would see everybody walking around. I’m just like, ‘man, if we all just took a garbage bag with us and just picked up garbage, we could make such a difference.’”

Sharma, who’s lived in multiple places across Canada, moved to Maple Ridge last November from New Westminster. The new city felt friendly and had a community feel, and she thought it was the right place to start a community cleanup group.

Last month, she joined a community Facebook group and posted about organizing a cleanup.

While she received a lot of positive feedback on the post — she says around 60 people commented — no one showed up to the first event.

But Sharma didn’t give up. 

“I’m a business owner,” she said. “So I know that the first time you do something and it fails, it doesn’t mean that it’s a flop, it just means that you got to do something different and pivot.”

She had only given three days notice, and she thought that it wasn’t enough.

“Let me try it again. What can I do different and how can I be more successful with this?”

Sharma made a Facebook group called Maple Ridge Clean Up Crew, and gave people three weeks advance notice. Since then, she’s been posting in the group every week, reminding people to save the date. The first event is this coming Sunday at 1 p.m. at Haney Nokai Park, with more planned in May.

“If you fail and you have a dream, you didn’t try very hard,” she said.

Sharma’s goals aren’t only to clean up the environment, but to also encourage people to stop littering and to create community.

“I think after COVID, a lot of [the community] died. And I think people are really craving that, and I think it’s a cool way for neighbours to get to know each other too.”

She got supplies from the Alouette River Management Society, including garbage grabbers, vests, bags, and a sharps container. She asks that people who plan to join RSVP on the Facebook event page.

It feels good to do something about the problem, she said.

“A great way to get out of feeling bad is by taking action and doing something about it, actually kind of transforming that negative energy into something positive.”