October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and there will be around 30 vendors at the Riverwalk Recreation Center on Friday to kick-off this event. The ceremony will run from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., but vendors will be present until 4 p.m. You will also be able to donate blood at the event and food will be served. COVID-19 safety measures will be in place. Thank you to Kymera, Albertson, La Tienda and Pizza Inn for helping make this event possible, and special thanks to Renee Madrid and the staff at the Riverwalk Recreation Center for all of their hard work.
Oct. 1 is also the kickoff for the Firefighters Combat Challenge, with individual events beginning at 4 p.m. This year’s Combat Challenge will be held downtown. The Firefighter Combat Challenge will continue on Saturday and include vendors, food trucks and music. We’re especially excited about the 5 p.m. performance by Groupo Veneno.
This past weekend, we had 257 people participate in our Household Hazardous Waste Cleanup Day at the Beach. Our grappler took five full loads of tires to the convenience station, which amounts to around 900 tires. These events are well utilized by residents who have materials that are hard to get rid of. We’ll have more information on the total volume in the future.
For Riverblitz Round 2 – we had a total of 52 participants show up, most of whom were relative newcomers to Carlsbad. Many volunteers cleaned up the beach in town, Six Mile Dam, Lower Tansill, and the Flume area. We appreciate the Bureau of Land Management, Eddy County, XTO Energy, Centurion Pipeline, Nuclear Waste Partnership, and Montgomery Insurance Agency for helping with this event. We look forward to many more cleanup activities in the future.
The United Way of Eddy County has a new Executive Director. Congratulations to Maria Cole, who began with the United Way this Monday. She’ll be working with Shontrelle Combs, the United Way’s marketing director.
According to her bio, is a Business and Marketing Strategist who holds a BA in Business with an emphasis in Marketing from New Mexico State University. She writes that her passion for people can be traced back to her pre-professional days with a vision of helping to build a better community. Maria aims to inspire people to make a difference while being stewards for one another. When she isn’t helping others, Maria loves spending her time with her husband and two young boys.
The organization also recently received a grant from MainStreet for a new office sign in front the downtown office. ER signs is donating installation and labor, and we look forward to seeing it soon.
Sincerely,
Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway