I find it very satisfying to clean up trash.

It's humble work, and it feels good to me. There's the physical labor, whether it's just stooping to pick up discarded beer cans and take-out coffee cups on the way to the mailbox, or lugging tires and dead appliances out of the creek bed and working up a sweat.

There's a feeling I get when I am doing the right thing that lightens my heart.

It's fun. Working together with other people in a group to accomplish the cleanup amplifies whatever endorphin cascade is triggered by altruism. I feel less isolated, working with like-minded people for a common goal: a restored, cleaner waterway in my neighborhood.

I'm not above feeling some righteous anger at whoever dumped off that old couch or threw their Coors Lite can out the car window, but that's not the point. I know that trash and garbage will be dumped again, that the cleanup will have to be ongoing and the work will never really end.

What matters to me is that cleaning up a section of the creek does make a difference: visually, in the health of the creek, and in my heart.