Artesia Clean & Beautiful Executive Director Samantha Ponce’s passion for her position is evident by the number of projects she and AC&B oversees.
Add to that the everyday responsibilities she and the staff take on in the community, and their dedication shows.
AC&B is a non-profit organization that is state grant funded and affiliated with New Mexico Clean & Beautiful and Keep America Beautiful.
Ponce says that their main responsibility is to provide services to the community by way of litter awareness, recycling information and solid waste management.
Born and raised in Artesia, Ponce began working at AC&B in 1995 as a youth intern under then Director, Valerie Turnbow. She later took the position of intern supervisor, a position she held for two years.
After a 1 1/2-year stay in Odessa, Texas, where she was a restaurant manager, Ponce returned to Artesia and was hired as an assistant to Turnbow.
When Turnbow resigned in December 1999, Ponce took the position of acting director. In August of 2000 she was officially named executive director.
Ponce says that although it may seem like AC&B’s job would get redundant, she enjoys every day of it.
AC&B’s recycling pilot program collects recyclables from more than 15 businesses per day in Artesia. They are also currently involved in a program with the Artesia Elementary Schools called Pennies for Trees. The program collects pennies in each elementary school, and the school with the largest pennies-per-student ratio will be awarded a special tree to be planted at their school as well as a plaque honoring the school.
With only four paid staff employees, AC&B relies heavily on volunteers and community service workers.
Ponce said that AC&B works with the magistrate, municipal and juvenile courts as well as the welfare-to-work program to give offenders a chance to work off their community service sentences. She says she feels that the program is very successful because it not only gives them education on the importance of recycling and other matters, but also gives them a positive place to do their work.
“I even have a few former community service workers that now volunteer for us, so I definitely think it helps out the people who work off their sentences as much as it does the city,” said Ponce.
Other upcoming projects for AC&B this spring include: the Arbor Day Golf Classic, which is AC&B’s biggest fund-raiser of the year and will be held March 24; the Keep Artesia Beautiful Adopt-a-Tree program which runs from the end of March to the end of April and allows Artesians to have seedlings planted, free of charge, as long as they agree to maintain them; the Earth Day art contest ending April 22, which is a promotion in which elementary students get unused grocery bags from local stores and draw “how they envision the Earth should look like” on them. She said that each school’s bags will be taken to the stores in their district to be used for carryouts.
Another project is the Great American Cleanup, held April 28, which consists of many cleanups, such as, litter pickup, graffiti cleaning and Highway cleanup.
Ponce has been married to her husband Richard for nine years and they have three children, Cambria, 7, Kristen, 4 and Umeko, 1.
She admits that one of the reasons she loves her job so much is because she is an outdoors person.
“I love to be outdoors,” she said, adding, “Fishing is my favorite hobby, but mostly I like to do anything outdoors.”
Ponce insists that AC&B’s job is to serve the community of Artesia.
“We are willing to help anyone with any needs or concerns they have in their neighborhoods. If you need recyclables picked-up, we can do that,” said Ponce. “The community is always behind us, so we will continue to serve them the best we can.”