SCOTTS VALLEY — Motorists who pull into the little pockets that line either side of Highway 17 have 87-year-old Harvey Holm, and his son, to thank for keeping them clean.
The Scotts Valley resident will be recognized as Caltrans’ Santa Cruz County Volunteer of the Decade during a ceremony on May 25 in Monterey.
This will be the second time Holm has been honored for his work. The agency named him Volunteer of the Year in 2002.
Holm has spent more than a decade picking up litter along the 6-mile stretch of Highway 17 from Santa’s Village Road to Summit Road. He did it partly out of boredom, he said, but mostly in memory of a son, Greg, whom he affectionately described as “kind of a neat freak,”
Greg Holm, who died in 1988, enjoyed gardening and frequently complained about his neighbors’ unkempt yards, his father said.
“He’s look at their yards and say, ‘I wish they’d take care of them,'” Holm recalled. “So in a way, I felt like I was doing him a favor by helping to keep the freeway clean.”
Jeanette Green, who coordinates the Adopt-A-Highway program, said she tapped Holm for the award because of the dedication, loyalty and consistency.
“He’s been doing this since he retired, and I just admire him so much for doing it for all that time … He just really cares about keeping it clean,” she said.
Holm adopted that particular stretch of highway largely because, though he grew up in Sacramento, he first drove the infamously windy stretch when he was in high school.
“At that time, it was a three-lane road with what they called a ‘suicide lane’ in the middle,” he said.
Then, for nearly 30 years, he commuted from his home in Santa Cruz to San Jose, where he worked as a mechanical engineer. When he retired 20 years ago, he found himself with time on his hands and eventually contacted CalTrans.
On his first day, he said he picked up 25 bags of trash at the dozen or so pull-outs along the roadway. Two weeks later, he picked up only half that amount. And the next time, half again. as having someone picking up trash resulted in fews people throwing it.
Over the years, he found everything from scraps of paper to skin magazines to roughly $12 in paper and coin currencies. He even found a voided personal check — written by one of his friends.
Earlier this year, Holm decided to retire from the volunteer work.
“I just got too old,” he said, adding that his wife and children feared for his safety.
Details for his replacement have not been finalized.
Motorists may no longer find Holm at those lonely pull-outs, but a sign, “Maintained by the family of Greg Holm,” is posted near the site where he would turn around to complete the second half of his route.
