BankPacific launched its year-long initiative “Cleaning Up Our Alupang Beach in Hagåtña is the next stop for BankPacific’s beach cleanup initiative, “Cleaning Up Our Roots,” set for 6 to 8 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 16.
“We’ve been wanting to do something that’s more community driven for a while, but we wanted to do something that we felt was actually impactful, or could actually make a difference,” BankPacific business development manager Rocco Flores told the Pacific Daily News.
Alupang Beach in Hagåtña is the next stop for BankPacific’s beach cleanup initiative, “Cleaning Up Our Roots,” set for 6 to 8 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 16.
“We’ve been wanting to do something that’s more community driven for a while, but we wanted to do something that we felt was actually impactful, or could actually make a difference,” BankPacific business development manager Rocco Flores told the Pacific Daily News.
It is the bank’s second event for its year-long community initiative that’s about cleaning one village park each month for the next year, with each one chosen by that village’s mayor.
BankPacific’s “Cleaning Up Our Roots” initiative kicked off at Angel Santos Memorial Park in Hagåtña on July 12, where the team came together to waterblast, landscape, and pick up trash.
Before starting this initiative, Flores said BankPacific considered other avenues of community outreach, such as addressing homelessness and addiction.
“A lot of companies do community stuff, but it feels like Guam is going through a rough time right now,” Flores said. “The main things we were thinking about were how we can maybe help with the drug crisis or even the homeless crisis, but those were things we felt we couldn’t really make a huge difference, because those are things that the private sector doesn’t really have much control over. It’s really the public sector that has the most influence.”
BankPacific is working with its sister companies and partners, such as Casa de Flores and the Guam Skate Network, to draw more attention and recruit more hands to help at each cleanup event.
This assistance will be crucial as it visits villages with “a lot more brush” or have spots for illegal dumping of appliances and metals.
Although the current initiative is expected to end in June 2026, Flores is confident the program could be renewed or continued afterward.
“I think this is something that is going to expand as time goes on, because we made it a year-long theme, and I don’t think it’s going to stop once it’s been a year and we don’t do anything anymore,” Flores said. “We’ve had some people say they want to work with one of the schools. [For now], it’s mostly us, our sister companies, the mayor of the village, and anybody else who wants to come and be involved.”
BankPacific will provide coffee and light breakfast after the cleanup efforts are completed at Alupang Beach on Aug. 16.
The next anticipated cleanup is to be announced but Flores said BankPacific is now in talks with Mangilao Mayor Allan Ungacta to visit Mangilao in September.
