Story by Jason Grotelueschen
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Photos courtesy of Erik Bell

In recent years, any West Seattleite has likely seen the handiwork of local community cleanup group A Cleaner Alki, and its leader Erik Bell. 

The group has always been fueled by community help, but right now, it needs your support more than ever because it will be unexpectedly losing some crucial grant funding. More on that below.

ACA, founded by Bell in 2021, is a truly grassroots effort that has grown into a cleanup powerhouse: In 2024 alone, it held 289 organized events involving 4,700 volunteer hours, resulting in more than 36 tons of trash being removed from our community.

Their daily “Block Drops” also removed 7,800 pounds of trash with the help of thousands of volunteer hours, including helpers of all ages:

Recent cleanups have included Roxhill Park, Duwamish Head Greenspace and downtown White Center, and upcoming cleanups include 1st Ave Bridge, Lincoln Park, the Othello neighborhood, and Schmitz Park (pictured below, from a past cleanup): 

Last week, Bell made a plea on social media to let his supporters know that he had recently been informed that the group would not be awarded an extension of a two-year $60,000 Dept. of Ecology Grant which has been a major piece of their funding. While disappointing, Bell is actively moving ahead with the group’s mission, and is looking for the community’s help with individual donations (you can give here via the Seattle Parks Foundation) as well as hearing your ideas for connections/suggestions for securing larger chunks of funding. See below for more details, from Bell:

A Cleaner Alki was established in July 2021 to invite neighbors out to help clean up our local community. We started with simple weekend cleanups on Alki Beach, but as the group quickly grew we were soon looking for other opportunities off the beach. Over the next year and a half we started cleaning up at local schools, parks, residential areas, business junctions and abandoned encampments. We joined Seattle Public Utilities Adopt A Street program who started supplying us gear and picking up our piles. 

 

A community member gifted us a van for our work which allowed us to get more tools and accommodate more helpers.

 

In 2023 we applied for funding from the Washington State Dept. of Ecology and were awarded a 2 year $60,000 Public Participation Grant. That amazing opportunity let us amplify our workload and we started offering 4-5 cleanups a week as well as putting Block Drop stations up around the community for self-led cleanups.

 

In the past two years we’ve onboarded with Seattle Parks Foundation, who acts as our fiscal sponsor, and allows us to go after grants and donations through their nonprofit status. We’ve also partnered weekly with Seattle Parks & Rec gardeners, SDOT Street End gardeners and Forest Stewards to help the city with their work loads around West Seattle, removing invasives and replacing them with native plants. We likewise added “Sprucing” cleanups to our offerings which clear overgrown public infrastructure, removing hazards and line of sight issues for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists for a safer community.

 

In 2024, ACA held 289 organized events with the help of 4,700 hours of volunteer time which collected over 36 tons of trash out of our community. Our Block Drops, which get put out daily, also removed 7,800 pounds of trash out of our community with the help of thousands of volunteer hours.

 

ACA’s success is powered by the amazing neighbors who come out and give of themselves in our cleanup work daily. In fact, the fellowship we are creating is the most important part of our mission, and the cleanups are simply byproducts of these developing friendships.

 

Although the grant has been an amazing catalyst to get to where we’re at—we weren’t awarded it for this upcoming biennium, so we’ll need to figure out other funding means to keep our momentum going.

 

If any neighbors know of grants or foundations that align with our community building work, we would love to seek out those connections and continue our growth—and potentially become a model for this type of group for any neighborhood. For those who value this work and would like to help out on an individual level, we offer tax-deductible donations through Seattle Parks Foundation at https://www.classy.org/give/563765

 

Follow us on our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/acleaneralki, on Instagram @a.cleaner.alki or on our website at byandby.org

 

We post new opportunities every weekend for the upcoming week and would love to have more neighbors involved! Thank you for your love over these past four years West Seattle, we look forward to many more and to continue to improve this place we all call home! 

Your support means that Bell’s group can continue their efforts on a wide variety of projects, including greenspace cleanups:

…and even the occasional broken-dock cleanup on the shore:

Bell encourages neighbors to connect with him via social media or at erik.belltribe@gmail.com or 206-852-9552, as well as the group’s website. And again, you can donate to the cause here via the Seattle Parks Foundation.