College of Business Administration

Social and Ethical Issues in Business

National City Clean- Up

GROUP MEMBERS:

Ernest Chi
Patty Hernandez
Corinne McGuire
Polly A. Ronquillo

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

In our original proposal, we intended to have local businesses adopt a certain block in National City. These businesses would be responsible for keeping their adopted area clean of trash, graffiti, shrubs, etc. During our initial meeting with Assistant Director of Community Development, Dave Sheldon and EDCO Field Service Representative Gary Smith, we told them about our intentions, but because of the vastness, time limitation and red tape, we had to modify our project. Gary, who is a concerned citizen, pointed out certain areas of the city that needed some attention. After that meeting, we decided to target two areas where clean-up and beautification was necessary. Our group decided to do the two Welcome sign areas on 1st & Palm and Roosevelt & National City Blvd. in National City.

In our next meeting with Dave and Gary, we told them the two areas we wanted to target and that we would like to put decorative rocks in front of the "Welcome" sign of the 1st & Palm location. We told them that this would not cost the city anything and we would contact local businesses to either donate money or supplies necessary for the project. There were two areas of concern that were brought up. First was the insurance issue, so we had to work under the Christmas in July organization. The next concern was the rocks because of public safety. Dave advised us to go ahead and seek donations and go through the proper channels (city manager, public works) to get the approval for the laying of the rocks.

After we got the approval for our project, we started the process of raising money and soliciting donations. We decided to solicit donations from local food establishments/groceries to provide the lunch and beverages, hardware/gravel businesses to donate the rocks and other supplies necessary to accomplish our project, and we targeted neighborhood strip malls for money donations. We started contacting these business either by phone or in-person under the banner of the Christmas in July organization. We were successful in having Domino's Pizza provide lunch; Sunrise Produce donate beverages; Kitagawa Office Supply donate necessary copying; Southwest Packing donate heavy duty trash bags; RCP Block and Brick donate decorative rocks and rock adhesive; Home Depot donate plastic liner, plastic borders, plastic reinforcements and weed killer; Eldorado Cleaners, Wrigley's Market, and Mervyn's California give monetary donations; and EDCO Disposal Corporation donate the bin where the collected trash/shrubs where thrown in.

November 23, 1996 was the day of the project. One of Christmas in July's Board of Directors, Cecilia Kirk, lifetime member of Christmas in July, Mrs. Robertson, and Dave Sheldon showed up and eight other volunteers showed up on the day of the project. At 9:00 a.m., we started the clean up process of picking up the trash, pulled/sprayed the weeds, turned-over the soil, and laid the decorative rocks. Around 12:30 p.m., we took a lunch break donated by Dominoes Pizza and Sunrise Produce Market. By 2:00p.m., we had finished the first site and moved over to the next site on National City Blvd. & Roosevelt. At this second site we concentrated more on removing trash, clearing out dried and growing weeds, and other debris. By 3:30 p.m., we had finished detailing both sites.

Return to Professor Dunn's home page.