Once a week, The Esplanade Apartment Homes team in San Jose, California will take time out of their busy lives to care for their community through a neighborhood clean-up.

Community manager at The Esplanade, Rochelle Segura, led the charge, as she reached out to the city of San Jose to see about adopting their neighborhood block. The city was more than thrilled: “They said we were the only apartment community to do that!”

Residents of The Esplanade also joined the fun: “They loved how we gathered everyone to work together to clean up the community in whole.”
 
Located on East Taylor Street, where restaurants and small business abound, “Folks and neighboring shop owners walked past us and thanked us for doing this,” notes Rochelle. “We truly felt like we were all making a difference together!”

The Esplanade team didn’t stop there: “Our team also joined San Jose’s anti-graffiti and anti-litter program,” adds Rochelle. With an app called SJclean, you can take a picture of graffiti or abandoned furniture in your neighborhood, upload it to the app, and the city will find it based on your GPS location. They’ll send a dispatch crew to clean it all up and email/text when it’s done.  

“I wanted our residents to know that even though they don’t own their own home, they still have their own community they can connect with and work together to make it better,” adds Rochelle.

Today’s renters consider many things when deciding where they want to live and work. This is especially true for millennials, as studies show that their companies’ volunteer policies affect their decision to apply.

Already giving back to your community? We'd love to hear about it! Email us at coolstuff@essex.com