Stepping up: Bend woman clearing Deschutes River bank of trash

'Just to know it's getting put in a bag and hauled out of here makes me feel good.'

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Along the banks of the Deschutes River on the north end of Bend, trash left behind from homeless campers is building up.

Raemi Poitras said she was shocked to see a social media post of what the river bank looked like in the area.

"I'm just finding that no matter where I look, there's garbage and evidence of household, living-type items that belong in the dump and not on our river,” the Bend native told NewsChannel 21 on Monday.

So instead of complaining about the trash buildup, Poitras started doing something about it.

"This is my third day out here," she said while bagging up some of the garbage.

Poitras is working her way from the Mount Washington Drive Bridge, clearing the trash on the river's west bank. She hopes to make it to the dam upriver by spring.

"And I feel like if those of us who can don't get out there and do something, it's just going to get worse," she said.

It's not easy either, as the area is filled with large boulders and mud to navigate. It’s the same spot were a homeless man fell 40 feet from the cliff above last August.

"Just to know it's getting put in a bag and hauled out of here makes me feel good," Poitras said.

And besides, she has some down time to spare, due to slow times with her pet care business because of the pandemic.

"I like to help my community in any way that I can,” Poitras said. ”I've been trying to help the homeless community for the last three to five years, I'd say."

It's a problem she understands all too well.

"I never had to live like this,” Poitras said, recalling a time when she was homeless herself. “I lived in a Volkswagen bug with my kids when they were small, but we lived up in the mountains, and we survived on very little. So I understand it."

And the location doesn't make hauling the trash out too easy.

"If we as a community can help the people that are out here,” she said. “Bring them garbage bags. Do dump runs for them."

She’s still got a long way to go to reach her goal. One bag of trash at a time.