As summer comes to an end, Labor Day is fast approaching, which means there is one last busy weekend for beach-goers to enjoy some fun in the sun! All of that fun and sun also brings an influx of visitors into San Diego during the holidays, and with all the extra people comes an increased amount of waste that overwhelms our current infrastructure.
Join ILACSD and the Clean Beach Coalition to ensure our beaches stay clean over the long holiday weekends. Help ILACSD assemble temporary trash and recycling bins that will be placed across San Diego beaches and bays to encourage beach-goers to properly dispose of their items throughout the busy Labor Day weekend. Join us in keeping our beaches clean!
Volunteers are required to fill out two waiver forms and anyone under the age of 18 needs both waivers signed by their parent or guardian. For this opportunity, all volunteers must be 16 years of age or over to participate.
If you are interested in participating, please email Natalia at nking@cleanSD.org to sign up!
It’s summer in San Diego, and that means basking in the sun on our beaches and bays to celebrate 4th of July! All of that fun and sun also brings an influx of visitors into San Diego during the holidays, and with all the extra people comes an increased amount of waste that overwhelms our current infrastructure.
Join ILACSD and the Clean Beach Coalition to ensure our beaches stay clean over the long holiday weekends. Help ILACSD assemble temporary trash and recycling bins that will be placed across San Diego beaches and bays to encourage beach-goers to properly dispose of their items throughout the busy 4th of July weekend. Join us in keeping our beaches clean!
Volunteers are required to fill out two waiver forms and anyone under the age of 18 needs both waivers signed by their parent or guardian. For this opportunity, all volunteers must be 16 years of age or over to participate.
If you are interested in participating, please email Natalia at nking@cleanSD.org to sign up!
Spring is in full swing! In San Diego, that means basking in the sun on our beaches and bays to celebrate Memorial Day! All of that fun and sun can also bring an increased amount of trash to our beautiful city. Join ILACSD and the Clean Beach Coalition to ensure our beaches stay clean over the long holiday weekends. Help ILACSD assemble temporary trash and recycling bins that will be placed across San Diego beaches and bays to encourage beach-goers to properly dispose of their items throughout the busy Memorial Day weekend. Join us in keeping our beaches clean!
All of our volunteers are required to fill out two waiver forms and anyone under the age of 18 needs both waivers signed by their parent or guardian. For this opportunity, all volunteers must be 16 years of age or over to participate.
If you are interested in participating, please email Natalia at nking@cleanSD.org to sign up!
This May, I Love A Clean San Diego will bring 1,000 elementary school students, teachers, and volunteers to the beach to become a living piece of artwork at South Mission Beach to celebrate the annual Kids’ Ocean Day.Through a partnership with the California Coastal Commission, ILACSD will host San Diego County’s 20th Annual Kids’ Ocean Day! Kids’ Ocean Day kicks off before we even reach the beach with in-school assemblies to educate the students on the importance of our ocean, how it is being harmed due to human actions, and how we each play a role in protecting the health of our oceans. Then, on May 24th, these students will unite in a beach cleanup, followed by the formation of an image only visible from the sky. Check out the video below to get a glimpse of what to expect at Kids’ Ocean Day.
This year, the statewide theme is “Waves of Change,” evoking the powerful force we can be when united in our actions. Forming the aerial art message through the collective efforts of each individual sitting in the sand is a perfect metaphor for how our combined daily habits like refusing single-use plastics have incredible power in shaping the health of our environment. We are grateful to have so many young participants engaging in this cause and hope this event will propel their momentum in acting as wise environmental stewards.
Revealing I Love A Clean San Diego’s 2018 Kids’ Ocean Day “WAVES OF CHANGE” Aerial Art Design:
2018 Kids’ Ocean Day Aerial Art Design
If you would like to be a part of this event, we’re looking for adult volunteers (18 years of age and older) to lead students during the cleanup and the aerial art. If you’re interested, you can find more details on the Kids’ Ocean Day event page or register here! As a thank you, all volunteers will receive a photo of the completed aerial art image as a keepsake! We hope you’ll come together with us this year to be a wave of change for our environment!
As if spending a morning at the beach while protecting precious marine wildlife and our picturesque coastline wasn’t already reason enough to sign up, this cleanup is taking it to the next level with screening passes to the upcoming Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle! Get access to a sneak peek viewing of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle when you join us for an extra special Movies Over Messes Cleanup on Saturday, December 16th from 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM at Mission Bay’s Bonita Cove – 1100 W Mission Bay Drive, San Diego, CA 92107.On top of the preview screening passes, promotional prizes will also be available to the volunteers! Bask in some 90s nostalgia with a fresh spin on an old favorite!
We encourage volunteers to bring their own reusable items such as – water bottles, work gloves, and buckets to promote zero waste practices and help us in our mission to have a zero waste, litter free and environmentally engaged San Diego region!
All volunteers are required to fill out a waiver form to participate and anyone under the age of 18 needs a parent or guardian signature.
In the brand new adventure Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the tables are turned as four teenagers in detention are sucked into the world of Jumanji. When they discover an old video game console with a game they’ve never heard of, they are immediately thrust into the game’s jungle setting, into the bodies of their avatars, played by Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan. What they discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji – Jumanji plays you. They’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives, or they’ll be stuck in the game forever…
I Love A Clean San Diego once again partnered with the California Coastal Commission for our 19th annual Kids’ Ocean Day. On May 18, 2017, over 900 students, teachers, and volunteers united together to clean up Mission Beach and the surrounding area. These dedicated 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders rallied together from 7 local schools to protect our oceans by collecting thousands of pieces of litter and marine debris. Common items found during the cleanup included small pieces of plastic, snack wrappers, straws, and Styrofoam. The students’ cooperative energy and childlike verve were tangible on the beach that day.
Students from Porter Elementary show off the waste they collected and their shirts decorated with this year’s theme – COME TOGETHER.
Following the cleanup, students united with community volunteers to form an aerial art image. One of the most common questions we receive is, “how do you make the aerial art happen?” Here’s a peek behind the curtain:
Each year, I Love A Clean San Diego’s education department designs an aerial art image that follows the statewide theme for all 5 Kids’ Ocean Day partners. On the day of the event, the ILACSD aerial art team assembles before daybreak to produce the much-anticipated image. Equipped with irrigation flags, surveyor’s tape, and extra-long measuring tapes, our amazing staff spend the wee hours of the morning meticulously plotting each and every point of the aerial artwork image. This year’s theme – COME TOGETHER – draws on the power we have when united in our efforts to protect and defend the oceans and coastlines from pollution.
As students began to file into the formation, anticipation was high; everyone was excited to see the helicopter fly overhead, photographer inside, capturing our hard work from the sky. It was a gratifying moment to see all the students, teachers, volunteers, and staff sit in stillness within the image for 10 brief minutes. After months of planning, we were all rewarded with a powerful piece of art so vast it can only be seen from the sky.
The success of the day could be measured by the faces of the beaming students. They felt a sense of accomplishment from doing their part to help clean up the environment. The students now stand united as true “Scholars for the Sea!”
Kids’ Ocean Day is a magnificent event that helps to bring environmental awareness and stewardship to the forefront of these students’ minds. It is a day of joining forces and demonstrating to the kids what it means to work together as one. The students walked away from Kids’ Ocean Day feeling empowered and armed with the understanding that their personal choices have power and their everyday actions will impact our environment and our future.
Volunteers picking up litter before it is swept away by the tide. We are passion in action.
San Diego’s Tsunami Sweepers were at it again last weekend for our first cleanup of 2016! I Love A Clean San Diego has been named the first responder in San Diego to assist in the cleanup of debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami that is expected to wash up on California’s shores in 2016.
While our volunteers were looking for tsunami debris, there was plenty of litter to pickup on our end, as well. Our coastline is the last stop for litter before it reaches the Pacific Ocean so ILACSD and an astounding crew of 305 volunteers set out to beautify one of San Diego’s most scenic and iconic natural spaces, Torrey Pines State Beach.
Volunteers ready to cleanup with waivers and even reusable buckets in hand!
Even with a chance of rain in the forecast, hundreds of San Diegans turned-out to keep Torrey Pines State Beach clean and beautiful. Equipped with bags, buckets, trash grabbers and gloves, volunteers of all ages spread out across the sandy coastline and walkways.
Volunteers took to the walkways in addition to the sandy beach where they found more Styrofoam and cigarette butts.
Thanks to the full moon, the tide was unusually high, but that didn’t slow down our team of dedicated volunteers. Many of them took to the nearby walkways to capture trash before it reached the sand and tide, as well.
On the beach side of the cleanup, volunteers continued to find small pieces of trash including several pieces of fishing net.
Rocks and boulders are the perfect hiding spots for litter.
In a matter of only two hours, volunteers collected mostly cigarette butts, bits of Styrofoam and food wrappers. Even though our volunteers didn’t find any tsunami specific debris, volunteers still collected over 500 pounds of litter!
Weighing the litter at the end of the event is one of the most rewarding parts of every cleanup we do.
If you weren’t able to make it to our first cleanup, don’t worry! We have monthly cleanups as well as two countywide cleanups, Creek to Bay and Coastal Cleanup Day. Find out how to get involved by visiting our upcoming events page!
Today’s post comes from I Love A Clean San Diego’s Director of Development & Marketing, Morgan Justice-Black, who thinks that annual program totals are pretty much the cats pajamas!
As someone who spends most of my days fundraising, there is no more exciting time of the year than the end of the year. Seeing those last few donations come in before the new year rolls around and crossing my fingers that we meet our projected revenue goals has become an annual tradition for me. But I also love the end of the year for another reason…the opportunity to compile our program totals for the year!
My coworkers run their programs pretty much up until the last week of the year. This year, we had two cleanups in December, as well as education presentations in schools through December 19th! Shout out to Mission Estancia Elementary in Carlsbad for being our last presentations of 2013! Naturally, the holiday “break” was spent doing some serious math, adding up the total number of volunteers we mobilized, the number of education sessions that we hosted, and much more.
Well, I’m happy to report that the results are in! And once again, I’m in awe of how much an organization of just 12 staff can get done!
All in all, 2013 was a great year for I Love A Clean San Diego. But I’m confident that 2014 will be even better. Why? Because we are turning 60! Not me personally of course, but I Love A Clean San Diego! Since 1954, we’ve been working to prevent pollution in San Diego County, giving us a BIG reason to celebrate! So stay tuned for how we are going to make 2014 a year to remember. Oh, and if you didn’t get your donation in before the end of the year, our mailbox is always open 😉
Today’s blog post comes from our Marketing Intern, Christina, who fearlessly led a cleanup site as part of the Creek to Bay Cleanup.
This year’s Creek to Bay Cleanup was a huge success thanks to all of our hard working staff, interns and volunteers! We’ve all had time to exchange stories and reflect on our experiences, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my experience with all of you. This was not only my first Creek to Bay, but my first ever event with I Love A Clean San Diego, so I was excited and a bit nervous as I served as a site captain for Carroll Canyon.
Upon arrival, I noticed how steep the descent to the actual canyon was and felt a bit intimidated knowing I was about to lead groups of students and cub scouts down the treacherous hill through mounds of poison oak. Some of the volunteers blew me away with their incredible enthusiasm and dedication. For example, one man who was volunteering with John Deer Water, showed up at 8:30, which was half an hour before the event even began, grabbed a trash bag and headed down the canyon straight away. He told me this was his third cleanup, and a well-seasoned veteran wastes no time waiting for others. Throughout the duration of the event he made 4 complete trips into the abyss and back with two full black bags of trash each time. Everyone was supremely impressed with his dedication and persistence.
Volunteers in canyons are an essential part of the Creek to Bay Cleanup
Trekking alongside the creek that runs through the canyon, we were all very surprised to find such a large amount of debris. There isn’t much surrounding the area so it was odd to find so many beer cans, clothing, plastic bins, and Red Box sleeves. How exactly do you watch DVDs in a canyon anyway? At one point, two Cub Scouts were seen in the distance lugging a giant rusted tent and canopy up the steep hill, we all ran to their aid but they refused help because they wanted to be able to say they hauled it all the way to the top themselves. The boys won our competition to see who could collect the most garbage. They were thrilled to receive free passes to the Birch Aquarium. After all of the Carroll Canyon volunteers battled their way through the terrain for three hours, we all felt a little more connected to each other and a little scared we had all contracted poison oak.
After everyone had parted ways, I couldn’t help but feel so proud of our community for giving up so much time to come hang out with me and help make San Diego a bit cleaner, healthier and more beautiful. I look forward to working I Love A Clean San Diego’s future events, and we all hope to see YOU there as well!
