PORT ANGELES — If you win volunteer of the year from an organization whose mission includes picking up trash, then a Grappler pick-up tool is far more meaningful — and useful — than a trophy.

For Vern and Kathy Daugaard, recipients of the inaugural “golden bucket” award at 4PA’s first anniversary celebration Saturday evening at the Elks Naval Lodge, it was a funny and meaningful recognition of their dedication to helping their hometown become safer and cleaner.

“I’ll absolutely use it,” Vern Daugaard said.

4PA’s founder Joe DeScala said the Daugaards were among the organization’s first volunteers and exemplified its “team spirit.”

The nonprofit, crowd-funded organization established in October 2021 embraces a dual focus of cleaning up illegal dumping, abandoned homeless camps and graffiti around the city while offering outreach and support to unsheltered men and women in the community.

DeScala acknowledged to supporters there was a great deal of risk involved when he started 4PA because the task seemed so great and the future uncertain. But, he said, early benefactors like Mike and Rashell Hermann and a corps of dedicated volunteers made a project what he estimated would take six months to get up and running take less than a month to launch.

“I have never seen a community more enthusiastic to pick up garbage,” DeScala said to laughter.

Jessica Irvine became involved with 4PA in December 2021. She and her husband Brandon, a Port Angeles native, had relocated from Portland right before the COVID pandemic hit, and that didn’t leave her much time to establish a social network. When the lockdown ended, she sought a way to connect with the community and Brandon suggested she contact DeScala.

“I wanted to meet like-minded people and I believed in the mission, which is a balance between providing homeless support and cleaning up the community,” Irvine said.

Over the past year, more the 100 4PA volunteers have collected nearly 70,000 pounds of trash: grocery carts, DVDs, drug paraphernalia, kitchen appliances, sleeping bags, bottles, wood pallets — in other words, just about anything and everything people buy, use, create and discard.

Volunteers use lacquer finish remover and Goof Off to erase graffiti from power boxes and light poles, garbage cans, fences, benches on the city pier and the sides of downtown business buildings. If graffiti reappears, volunteers remove it again.

Among 4PA’s other successes, DeScala said, have been clearing some of the city’s most hard-hit areas of trash, such as the north side Cherry Hill behind Country Aire and upper Peabody Creek.

It has established four weekly maintenance routes, including Peabody Creek, downtown and the Waterfront Trail, and created five locations that volunteers have “adopted” to clear of trash and monitor for unsheltered individuals who may need assistance.

The Daugaards, in addition to their weekly forays as volunteers with 4PA’s cleanup crew, have “adopted” Shane Park, which is located near their residence.

In addition to volunteers, DeScala thanked the Port Angeles Police Department, the City of Port Angeles, Serenity House, Peninsula Behavioral Health, the Clallam County commissioners and Reflections Counseling Services, among other private and public agencies, for working with 4PA in its cleanup and homeless outreach efforts.

Year two for 4PA, DeScala said, would continue its goal of cleaning Port Angeles of illegal dump sites to make it a clean and safe place to live and to help people find housing.

It would also move ahead with plans for creating a pilot program for housing.

By the end of 2022, he said, he also hoped the organization would have 501(c)(3) status and thus be eligible for tax-deductible contributions.

“We are actively looking for land for a housing project. The financing is set up and we are working with the city and county to find something,” DeScala said.

“We don’t want to just do garbage, that’s an endless cycle.”

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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached at paula.hunt@soundpublishing.com.