From Trails to Roadsides: Stewardship in Action

Sometimes taking care of your community means putting down the laptop and picking up a pair of gloves.

There are plenty of things you might expect to see during a day at Resolution Copper. Engineers solving problems. Teams working underground. People in meetings. Hard hats, high-vis and plenty of equipment.

A group of miners, geologists and engineers pulling weeds along a road?

That one might take a little explaining.

But for Resolution Copper employees, getting outside their usual work and into the community is nothing new. Every year, more than 100 employees consistently volunteer their time, contributing thousands of hours to community organizations and projects across the Copper Triangle.

And when the work involves caring for the environment, employees are especially ready to get their hands dirty. 

Different job. Same place to call home.

For many employees, volunteering is personal because the communities where they work are also where they live.

“I’m from Superior, so it’s important to me to maintain our local biodiversity,” said Cierra, an employee in Resolution Copper’s Environmental Department. “Here at the Arboretum, we’re helping remove invasive species. So it’ll help our environment, keep the biodiversity in the area, but also help the community at the same time.”

That connection to place shows up again and again.

Janeane Moreno, a Communities and Social Performance advisor, put it simply while volunteering along Highway 60, “This is where we live. This is where we play. This is where we call home.”

For employees who grew up in the area, the connection can go back generations.

Sabrina grew up in Superior and spent time at Boyce Thompson Arboretum as a child, including through a Nature Club sponsored by Resolution Copper. Years later, she found herself back at the Arboretum, this time as a Resolution Copper employee helping care for the grounds.

“It’s unique to see a bunch of miners out on the side of the road picking weeds, but we do it because we care about the environment,” she said.

There is, in fact, a reason for pulling weeds.

At Boyce Thompson Arboretum, employees helped remove invasive grasses and other vegetation along roadsides and entrance areas. The work is practical. It is also important.

Invasive species can compete with native vegetation and contribute to wildfire risk, making their removal an important part of caring for the landscape.

For Cierra, environmental volunteer opportunities are some of her favorites because they combine two things she cares about: the environment and her community. “It’s important to not do it just on site, but in the community so it doesn’t keep spreading,” she said.

Employees also get a chance to learn from the people who care for these places every day.

At Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Executive Director Kim Gray said Resolution Copper volunteers are among the organization’s favorite volunteer groups because they arrive ready to work and add meaningful capacity to the Arboretum’s small staff. With 374 acres to care for and 40 full-time employees, Gray said having an experienced volunteer group working alongside the Arboretum team can make a significant difference in how much work gets done.

That is what partnership can look like in practice: showing up, working side by side and helping tackle work that needs to get done.

Then there is Highway 60.

The assignment here is a little less botanical. Trash grabbers. Gloves. High-vis. And whatever happens to be hiding along the roadside. Resolution Copper employees have adopted a section of Highway 60 and return each year to help keep the road into Superior clean. Employees have found everything from bottles and cups to tires and pieces of metal.

For Helene, a Senior Training Advisor who grew up in a nearby Arizona mining town, the work has a familiar purpose. She remembers doing highway cleanups with her students when she was a teacher and takes pride in helping keep the community looking safe and cared for.

“I was always raised that you come back and you make it better,” she said.

More than a volunteer event

Employees volunteer throughout the year with community organizations across the Copper Triangle, including food banks, schools, trails and environmental organizations.

The Resolution Copper employee volunteer program contributes around 1,500 hours each year. The numbers matter. But so do the people behind them.

Christian, a Senior Electrical Engineer, said one of the best parts of volunteering is simply getting out from behind a desk and working alongside community members. “We’re here to help and to support,” he said. “The vibe here is that people are just excited to help.”That’s the part that can be easy to miss when you only look at volunteer hours on a spreadsheet.

Every hour represents a person who decided to show up.

A coworker who gave up part of a workday to fill trash bags.

An employee who pulled invasive grass from a place they visited as a child.

An engineer who traded office work for a pair of gloves.

A hometown resident who believes that when you live somewhere, you help take care of it.

More than 100 employees do that consistently each year, adding up to thousands of hours of hands-on support for the communities around us.

The weeds, the trash bags and the dirty gloves only tell part of the story. Hear from the employees who call this area home and see why taking care of it means something personal to them. Meet some of the employees behind the work →

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