About Our Lands
Network

This Project Began Long Before It Had A Name

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I grew up on a Fourth-Generation Small Family Farm

in Atlanta, California.

In the Early Days of my Life, my Grandfather and I would start many mornings driving slowly down the country road alongside our orchard, on our way to my Great-Grandmother's Farmhouse about a mile away.

It was a short drive, but we stopped often.

The reason?

Trash.

Beer Cans. Glass Bottles. Tires. Household Garbage. Even Stolen Vehicles.

These were regular finds along the roads in our

rural area.

My Grandfather didn't just drive past them.

We Stopped.

Those experiences stayed with me. Since the 1990s, I've found myself noticing the things that others sometimes pass by, and whenever I could, did something about them.

I've helped clean up hoarding situations.

I've picked up Trash along Beaches, The Playa, Campsites, and Roadsides in my free time.

I've stopped for things that would have been much easier to simply drive past.

But it wasn't until 2025, after I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury, that the idea for Our Lands began to take shape.

For the first time since I was 16 years old, I was spending a significant of time in the passenger seat while someone else drove.

And I started looking around.

I saw Trash along our Santa Cruz County roads, illegal dumping in beautiful places, and debris scattered across landscapes that belong to all of us, within the confines of the State Declared Cleanest County in California.

I began to realize just how widespread the problem had become, and how little infrastructure existed for ordinary people who wanted to do something about it.

I was already in a difficult chapter of healing, one that brought with it a lot of reflection about my own life, what mattered to me, and how I wanted to show up in the world.

Somewhere in that Chapter, Our Lands was born.

What began with a grandfather and his grandson stopping along a country road has grown into a much bigger idea.

What if millions of us started doing something to help?

What if we could build the Technology, Community, and Infrastructure to identify these problems, organize around them, clean them up, and make caring for the places around us something people could participate in wherever they live?

That is the future I believe Our Lands can help create.

And we're only at the beginning.

If you see the same potential in this project that I do, I invite you to become part of it in whatever way you can.

Investment can help us build the technology and infrastructure necessary to grow.

Small donations can help us get there, too.

But I also understand that times are difficult for many people.

Support doesn't always have to be Financial.

Share the Project.

Tell Someone About What We're Building.

Pick Something Up.

Send Us a Few Words of Encouragement.

Every Contribution to This Journey Matters.

Thank You for Believing in Our Lands

&

For Helping Us Take Care of the Places that Belong to

All of Us.

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Sincerely,

Eleo Nepote
Founder, Our Lands

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