Sailors assigned to the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) volunteered their time on Sept. 18 to clean up a local highway as part of the Adopt-A-Highway program.

Members of Stennis’s Coalition of Sailors Against Destructive Decisions (CSADD) donned their CSADD t-shirts to improve the cleanliness of a highway during a community relations (COMREL) project. The 18 sailors collected more than 25 bags of garbage.

“I enjoyed the camaraderie during the COMREL,” said Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Fuel) Airman Johnte Johnson, from Miami. “It was a good feeling to be able to unite sailors of different pay grades and do something for a good cause.”

Logistics Specialist 3rd Class Alejandro Rodriguezmatos, the CSADD event coordinator, said the COMREL allowed sailors to give back to the local community and to help spread the word about the CSADD program.

“We felt that we needed to do something positive,” said Rodriguezmatos, who is from Las Vegas. “I heard about a stretch of highway that Stennis owns and that it had not been cleaned up in a while, so I thought it was a good idea for us to come out here and pick up trash.” Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Equipment) 2nd Class Brad Hill, from San Diego, says that it’s important that the command supports the CSADD program because it’s a good way for sailors to be a part of a team and get involved with the community.

CSADD continues to spread the word about the program by putting up visual information for the Stennis crew and hoping in the future to display information booths on base.

Vice chief of naval operations, Adm. Mark Ferguson, commissioned the Navy-wide CSADD program three years ago to promote better decision making and encourage networking among junior sailors around the fleet.

Stennis is currently undergoing a Docking Planned Incremental Availability (DPIA) maintenance period at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility.

For more news from USS John C. Stennis visit www.stennis.navy.mil and www.facebook.com/stennis74.