The Modesto Chamber of Commerce Foundation Board

Members Choice Awards & Anniversaries

Members Choice Awards & Anniversaries

Downtown Street Teams

By Meggan Clifford Downtown Streets Team Director of Stanislaus County

Have you ever seen people in bright yellow T-shirts cleaning up our streets, parks and neighborhoods?

Those people are a special Team of volunteers whose efforts keep our community beautiful and safe. Last year, Team Members removed over four hundred thousand pounds of trash, and over one thousand discarded syringes from our streets!

Every one of those Team Members is a person experiencing homelessness who is a volunteer with Downtown Streets Team (DST). Street cleanup is just one aspect of the program. Going out on cleanup shifts helps develop soft employment skills like collaboration and punctuality. Plus, the high visibility of unhoused folks engaged in street beautification helps alter negative perceptions about homelessness.

Behind the scenes, Team Members work closely with DST case managers to set goals, and to identify and remove the barriers that hold them back from their self-identified goals.

Barriers differ from person to person and are often things most people take for granted, like accessing medical care, getting a driver’s license, or retrieving legal documents. DST tracks and records barrier removal as vital steps towards success. Last year case managers helped remove over 500 barriers to self-sufficiency and helped house 31 Team Members.

DST launched in Modesto in 2019 and continues to serve our most vulnerable community members. In partnership with City of Modesto and Stanislaus County, DST is able to serve 50 Team Members at a time, but the demand for services is high. Right now, there is a waitlist of over 40 people eager to exit survival mode and enter goal-setting mode.

DST can really use your help. For as little as $100, you can support a Team Member’s participation in the program for a week. You can shorten our waitlist with a gift of $1,000. If you’re a small business or corporation, a gift of $1,800 can sponsor an entire Team. Please visit our website to learn more www. streetsteam.org/modesto

Remember to give a friendly honk the next time you see those yellow-shirted Team Members out there cleaning our streets!