It’s a new year, and a trio of Tucsonans hope to bring students, teachers, business people and every faction of the community together — including the homeless and near-homeless — with one goal: to help Tucson come clean and heal, both literally and figuratively.
Helping Every and All Lives, or HEAL, is a grassroots movement started by Janeen Sermeno and her son, Aaron, and family friend, A. Matsuura, with the intent of purifying hatred through cleaning and collaboration. The group is planning its first citywide cleanup on Saturday, Jan. 23.
“This has been brewing for months or years, or maybe our whole lives. We noticed how much trash there is around town and started thinking, ‘Will anyone do anything about this?’ We want to do our part and realized that as citizens, we need to do what we can to make sure the city gets cleaned up and flourishes and put resources in the right places,” said Aaron, a local musician and native Tucsonan.
The three believe that a clean environment is essential to improved emotional, mental and physical health and productivity for everyone from all walks of life, including the homeless population in Tucson.
“HEAL is the culmination of lots of feelings … as a student when you walk outside of the university area and other affluent areas in the city, it is just terrible. There is too much trash, it is dirty, and you can’t walk around with a clear and joyous conscience.
“If your home was like this, you wouldn’t feel good. Why not accommodate our neighbors and lift them out of negativity by creating a clear view and removing obstacles? We need to enable our fellow community members to live in a joyous manner even if they are not affluent,” said Matsuura, who is pursuing a major in linguistics and a minor in computational musicology and cognitive science at UA.
He emphasized that living among trash impacts emotional and mental growth and a person’s well-being.
“Our goal is to get people to recognize the suffering of others and to come together in unity. We need to care about our ecosystems, our communities, ourselves and others and not only say it, but actually act like that is the case,” said Matsuura, who helped to organize “Celebration of Black Lives” through the University of Arizona’s Black Student Union last June.
The decision to take action and create HEAL last year came on the heels of social unrest and the pandemic. Jeneen views the restrictions of the pandemic not only as a time of obvious change but also of enlightenment.
“I had a lot of time to sit back and look at what was going on and reflect, and the opportunity to be still. For me, that was an opportunity and a blessing. Others may have thought of it as confinement, but for me, it opened my eyes and my heart.
“I recognized the discord and the disconnect of humanity, and it made me think that 2021 is a beautiful time to do something like HEAL,” said Jeneen.
Additionally, as a clinical coordinator for Retina Specialists of Southern Arizona, she hopes to share her personal journey in health and well-being with others through the movement.
Ultimately, the organizers believe that cleaning the city will cultivate love and compassion for the benefit of all humans and hope that this will be the first of many HEAL Tucson events.
“There are people plainly suffering. We can all benefit from kindness, and most people are inherently kind. If we continue being kind to others, we can get through seemingly dark times. There is so much potential here,” said Matsuura.
