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Introducing Grace! Educator & Ocean Aficionado
We’re excited to welcome Grace as our newest educator! Get to know Grace and what fuels her passion for the environment by reading our brief Q&A.
What brought you to ILACSD?
I was very excited to begin working at ILACSD as an Environmental Educator because it allows me to combine my interests in Marine Biology and the ocean with my passion for teaching and conservation. From a young age, I was always inspired by the ocean and could spend hours looking at sea stars in the tide pools. However, it wasn’t until my college internships with Heal the Bay that I realized it was something I wanted to help protect.
During my very first Coastal Cleanup Day I was given the unique opportunity to do an underwater SCUBA diving cleanup under the Santa Monica Pier. We pulled out cell phones, cameras, bike tires, fishing line, and beach toys, just to name a few. Not only did we find trash, but we also found animals, including crabs and sea hares, living among the trash. Seeing how these animals’ lives had become so impacted with this trash was the moment that I knew I wanted to help make a difference. And by working for ILACSD, I get to make that difference by inspiring environmental stewardship in students throughout the county.
What environmental topics are you most passionate about?
If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m extremely passionate about anything that has to do with the ocean. As an avid scuba diver, and someone who loves experiencing nature. One topic that is close to my heart is ocean acidification. Ocean acidification makes it exceptionally difficult for calcifying organisms (corals, krill, oysters, etc.) to make their shells. It is caused from excess CO2 in the atmosphere being absorbed into the ocean. By teaching students about how we contribute to environmental issues, it gives them the power to make positive changes that lessen their impact on our ecosystems.
What is your most recent environmental goal?
Even during my short time working at ILACSD, I have learned so much about trash. I recently learned $1 of every $10 spent goes towards packaging that is thrown away. My most recent goal has been to buy food with less packaging. This means buying different food items, going to different stores, and making sure fruits and veggies are a big part of my everyday diet.
What do you enjoy most about being an environmental educator?
I thoroughly enjoy interacting with the students that I am teaching! It is fun to experience their personalities as I present and discuss important issues with them. By helping them to see another perspective on the world, they can have a better appreciation for nature, which inspires them to protect it.
Do you have a favorite presentation?
One of my favorite presentations is our Enviroscape presentation, which uses a model of city along with sprinkles to represent different types of pollution. It really allows the students to visualize how pollution can make its way to the ocean and impact the animals that live there. Typically we do this presentation with 3rd graders, which is a really fun age because they are all extremely excited to share their ideas and own experiences.
I also really enjoy presenting our watershed program to AP Environmental Science classes because it allows me to use my background in science to incorporate higher level topics such as ocean acidification and eutrophication.
For more information about our presentations, email our Educator Manager at education@cleansd.org!
Join Grace & the rest of ILACSD team in our efforts to keep San Diego, and the Pacific Ocean, clean and beautiful. Our next cleanup is on December 5th at Black Mountain Ranch – click here to learn more!
Also, if you’re interested in joining the ILACSD team, check out our open positions and internship opportunities!
From intern to director to goodbye
Today’s blog comes from one of I Love A Clean San Diego’s most tenured staff members, Morgan Justice Black, who is saying goodbye after working at ILACSD for almost a decade. Below, she reflects on her time with the organization.
In June 2006, George W. Bush was the president, the World Cup was being played in Germany, the Disney film Cars was released, and I responded to a Craiglist posting for an unpaid internship with I Love A Clean San Diego. I’m not sure how much competition I had, but I landed the internship and my story with I Love A Clean San Diego began.
After a few months, I got lucky and my supervisor moved on. Again, somehow I landed her job and became the organization’s Volunteer & Events Coordinator at the ripe old age of 22. The best part of this gig…I was getting paid! I took the reins just in time for our biggest event of the year, the 22nd Annual Coastal Cleanup Day where I had to rub elbows with the likes of Supervisor Pam Slater Price and my childhood crush, local meteorologist Loren Nancarrow.
After a year on the job, I convinced my boss Pauline that we needed more help, so we hired someone even younger than me! Fresh out of college, Natalie arrived and became my right hand woman and still to this day Natalie and Pauline are key ingredients in the secret sauce that is ILACSD. I became the Outreach Director and tried the best I could to be involved in pretty much everything with ILACSD. I helped to orchestrate annual Halloween costume parties and earned the title of craziest office cat lady, as I fed the ever-growing pack of feral kittens. As the unofficial “jill of all trades” at ILACSD in those days, I got a lot of great experience doing a little of everything!
I learned how to maximize storage in our external storage unit, do dishes in the bathroom sink, and haggle for an office truck. I also learned the value of collaboration, and through new partnerships we began working closely with other nonprofits and companies to expand our programs.
2010 was a big year for me, and for ILACSD. We restructured and I became the Director of Development & Marketing. We also moved, saying goodbye to the office kitties, and hello to our current digs in Liberty Station. Over the years, I’ve written hundreds of grants, coordinated thousands of volunteers, been on tv too many times to count, had 5 different titles and attended 10 Coastal Cleanup Days – which just happen to always fall on my birthday weekend.
In fact, in 2013, I celebrated by 30th birthday at Coastal Cleanup Day with the ILACSD team, my family, a few elected officials and hundreds of volunteers. They actually sang happy birthday to me after Supervisor Cox announced over the microphone that it was my 30th birthday!
In addition to my “day job”, ILACSD has allowed me the flexibility to pursue my passion for volunteering in the community. With their support, I spent a number of years volunteering with the Junior League of San Diego and five years ago became a member of Women Give San Diego. I’ve been able to transfer skills from volunteering into the workplace and vis versa. And I’ve been able to fulfill my desire for constant civic engagement.
This week, after more than nine years and countless chapters, the story is coming to an end, as I say goodbye to the place that I’ve spend more time in than anywhere else in my adult life. I’ve developed many friendships, countless skills, but most importantly, I’ve grown into an adult under ILACSD’s watch. I’m sad to say goodbye, but I’m happy that ILACSD has instilled in me the confidence to go after a new opportunity in which I will continue to make San Diego a better place.
Thanks to all of you who have been a part of my journey over the last decade. It’s been quite a ride!
-MJB
Preliminary CCD Results are in!
Today’s blog comes from our Community Program Coordinator and co-Coastal Cleanup Day mastermind, Moriah Saldaña! Over the last few month, Moriah has worked closely with our Community Program Manager, Lexi Ambrogi, to ensure that our second countywide cleanup of the year was a success. Read on to learn more about preliminary totals and view snapshots from around the county!
The results are still coming in from Coastal Cleanup Day,
but one thing is for sure, Coastal Cleanup Day was an enormous hit! Whether our volunteers were at the beach picking up litter, removing graffiti in their local neighborhoods, or removing invasive plants from canyons, we know that San Diegans are now able to enjoy more than 100 clean outdoor spaces free of litter!
Coastal Cleanup Day in San Diego is part of a statewide and international cleanup effort to restore coastlines across the globe. The effort is coordinated statewide by the California Coastal Commission and internationally by The Ocean Conservancy. While international totals for 2015 are not available yet, in 2014, 560,000 volunteers in 91 countries picked up more than 16 million pounds of trash!
Our staff woke up extra early on Saturday morning to lead more than 200 volunteers in beautification projects at Emerald Hills Park in Encanto. While the focus of the morning was on various planting and mulching projects, volunteers cleared out over 2,700 pounds of debris!
As for the county as a whole, preliminary totals for Coastal Cleanup Day – San Diego indicate that we had over 7,500 volunteers cleaning up 105 local creeks, canyons, beaches and bays as part of this event! While the trash totals are still being compiled, we are expecting that more than 150,000 pounds of trash were removed from our county. On top of this, volunteers also beautified and restored the local environment through removing graffiti, removing invasive plants, building raised garden beds, and performing a variety of park maintenance projects.
Every year at this event, and at our other countywide cleanup, Creek to Bay in April, we see that cigarette butts and small plastic items are our most commonly found items. While unfortunately this isn’t that surprising, we are often stunned by some of the more unique pieces of litter that our volunteers find. Some of my favorites this year include a set of dentures in good shape, a full fish tank, a dragon statue and a MacBook computer.
See more pictures from Coastal Cleanup Day and our other cleanups on Facebook and Instagram!
Looking to join us at our next event? We have a quite a few volunteer opportunities coming up. Click here for more information on how to get involved!
CCD Volunteers to Expand Community Garden
Today’s blog comes from our Development and Marketing Coordinator, Sarah! Each April and September, she looks forward to the opportunity to shed light on the diversity of our countywide cleanup sites and the dedicated site captains that lead them. Read on to learn more about how one of our Coastal Cleanup Day sites, the Tijuana River Valley Community Garden, is going above and beyond the typical cleanup to benefit their local community.
Get to know the Tijuana River Valley Community Garden
Ann Baldridge, Coastal Cleanup Day site captain and Education Coordinator for the Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County, oversees the largest community garden in the County, the Tijuana River Valley Community Garden. The garden has 136 gardening plots that reflect the local community. Community members of all ages, young families to retirees, come to the garden to plant everything from your standard lettuce and tomatoes to culturally significant foods that represent the diversity of the surrounding communities. The plots have become so popular that there are currently 150 individuals and families on a wait list to receive a plot.
Ann shared that one of the most unique aspects of the garden is that it is a hidden gem within a regional park. Visitors of the regional park often mention that they had no idea this garden existed. Click here to learn more about the garden and how you, too, can find this local garden.
So, why does a community garden have its own cleanup site?
While the garden itself is beautiful, other parts of the river valley are significantly affected by illegal dumping and littering. As you can imagine, trash negatively impacts the local environment and the garden that feeds the local community. Before joining I Love A Clean San Diego for their first Coastal Cleanup Day in 2013, the RCD, Park staff, and plot holders at the community garden were already coordinating regular cleanups along the Tijuana River. When the team heard about Coastal Cleanup Day, they were inspired by the international movement and they knew that wanted to be a part of something bigger.
After years of leading these cleanups, Ann and her volunteers have found everything from construction debris and furniture to cigarette butts and abandoned shoes. When it rains, all that trash gets flushed through waterways straight to the ocean, resulting in unsafe conditions and frequent beach closures. When we remove the trash beforehand at cleanup sites like the Tijuana River, thousands of pounds of pollutants are kept from contaminating our beloved coastline and Pacific Ocean.
Trash removal is a large part of this annual event, however, it will not be the only focus at this site. Thanks to SDG&E employee volunteers, the community garden will have extra volunteer power this year to help expand the capacity of the garden. SDG&E volunteers will work alongside local residents to mulch trails, construct new compost bins, plant a new pollinator garden as well as build two new garden plots for local residents to grow their own nutritious food. Talk about sustainability!
If you’ve never visited the garden, Ann encourages you to come out for Coastal Cleanup Day on this Saturday, September 19th – “You’re guaranteed to have a great day and connect with wonderful people!”
Whether you join Ann at the community garden site in the Tijuana River Valley or another site that is meaningful to you, we hope you’ll join us for the largest cleanup of the year. Check out a complete list of cleanup sites at www.CleanupDay.org to find one near you.
Can’t make it to Coastal Cleanup Day? Join us for one of our upcoming cleanups!
If you love San Diego, help us keep it beautiful.
Meet Stew: a surfer and site captain
Each year, as I Love A Clean San Diego ramps up for the largest cleanup of the year, Coastal Cleanup Day, we like to highlight site captains who go above and beyond. We recently sat down with one of our newest site captains, Stew Aadnes from Encinitas, to learn about why he loves a clean San Diego! Read on to learn more about how Stew got involved and how you can sign up to clean up either at his site or one of our 100+ sites near you. 
During the week, you’ll find Stew out in the field as a Site Manager with Geosyntec, one of ILACSD’s 2015 Coastal Cleanup Day sponsors, surveying storm drains and other infrastructure to minimize its impact on the local environment. On the weekends, like many San Diegans, you can find him catching some waves at Grandview or Beacon’s, two of his favorite breaks. Whether he is out preventing storm water pollution or enjoying the fruits of his labor surfing, the one thing he often finds is trash and lots of it.
Stew first got involved with ILACSD at a beach cleanup with his company. He soon realized that he wanted to do more. So he signed up to lead his very first cleanup at Encinas Creek in Carlsbad as a Creek to Bay site captain. If you’ve ever been to one of our beach cleanups you know that we find a lot of small pieces of plastic like straws, bottle caps, and abandoned beach toys. These items cause a lot of harm to wildlife, beach-goers, and surfers, like Stew. However, our inland cleanups are a different story with lots of big, heavy, toxic trash, that thankfully we’re take care of before making its way downstream. Just last spring at Creek to Bay, Stew reported pulling out whole couches, mattresses, shopping carts, and you name it, out of Encinas Creek. He even used rope to create a pulley system to get the heaviest stuff out of the creek bed. Three hours later, he had two dumpsters full of trash.
But that’s not all you’ll find at Stew’s site. When speaking with him I asked, “What is unique about your site?” and he shared that there is something for everyone; if you want to get your hands dirty and pull out tons of trash, there’s that, but there is still plenty to cleanup, even for the youngest volunteers. You may be thinking, “Well, what motivates someone to do volunteer to run a cleanup site?” Stew hopes that he can look back in 6 months and see that he helped preserve a piece of nature that was once hidden by trash. Are you looking for some motivation? Stew says, “Come out and get your hands dirty. Put on your worst pair of jeans and get after it.” If nothing else, there’s always Pizza Port to look forward to afterwards 🙂
Whether you live in Carlsbad or another part of the county, we know you love your community. Save the date for Saturday, September 19th and register at www.CleanupDay.org for a site that is meaningful to you. Whether it’s your favorite beach where you take the family or perhaps a piece of nature that otherwise would be overlooked, we hope you’ll join us. Connect and protect. Keeping San Diego clean, together. A special thank you goes out to Geosyntec for supporting San Diego’s largest cleanup of the year as a sponsor and encouraging their employees to get involved in their community. Thank you for investing in a clean San Diego! 
Creek2Bay hits home for ILACSD staff
Today’s blog comes from Annie, our new Hotline Assistant! She joined the ILACSD team in February and now that she has settled into her new role, we’d like to officially introduce her to all of you! Read on to learn more about Annie and find out what made her first Creek to Bay Cleanup so meaningful.
First and foremost, I would like to introduce myself, my name is Anais “Annie” Rodriguez. I have been with the ILACSD team for a couple months as the newest Hotline Assistant. I assist hotline callers with their recycling questions and help maintain the County of San Diego’s Recycling and Household Hazardous Waste Database, www.WasteFreeSD.org. Before joining ILACSD, I graduated from Humboldt State University with a degree in Environmental Science with an emphasis in Environmental Policy.
As a new team member at ILACSD, the Creek to Bay Cleanup was a completely new experience for me. I was eager to spend time with volunteers and to clean up my community. This year, the Creek to Bay media site was at Southcrest Community Park so this event really hit home for me, since I grew up a few blocks from the park and the areas we cleaned up.
The day started a bit gloomy but cleared up right before the cleanup kick-off, perfect timing! Volunteers at the site were ready to get to work right after registering. I helped volunteers sign up for service projects and handed out supplies.
When registration was over I sorted out trash in the dumpster with other ILACSD staff. While sorting we found: toilet seats, car seats, metal frames, cans, and bottles. We went ahead and removed all recyclable items and placed them in the correct bin so unnecessary items didn’t end up in the landfill. We also received a few big items like a kitchen sink, a bed, and 3 shopping carts. Unfortunately, many of the big items were found in the creek bed, but with the help of our amazing volunteers we were able to remove it! I immediately saw the aesthetic difference of the creek and reflected on the importance of proper disposal of trash and recycling. One volunteer really stood out to me because he expressed such excitement about what we were doing there and how he is eager to make behavioral changes that will benefit his community.
Besides picking up trash, there were opportunities to participate in a few other service projects at Southcrest Park. Volunteers removed invasive plants from the creek bed, stenciled storm drain along the nearby streets, as well as painted park benches and other areas to remove graffiti. The park was left looking as good as new!
I had an amazing time getting to know our volunteers, working with the ILACSD team, and cleaning up my community! It was also so inspiring to see my nieces and their friends get excited about cleaning up our community. It was also a great example of the importance of not littering! The whole experience left me feeling empowered and motivated; I can’t wait for the next clean-up!
But before we start talking about our next cleanup, we’d like to debut our preliminary totals for this year’s Creek to Bay Cleanup! Drum roll please……..
- left to right: Moriah, Community Program Coordinator; Natalie, Senior Director of Operations; Lexi, Community Program Manager.
We would like to thank all of our 5,700 volunteers who took the time to make their communities clean and ensuring that our local waterways stay free of trash and pollutants! Thanks to your help, we cleaned and beautified a record number of 106 outdoor spaces and successfully removed approximately 125,000 pounds of debris countywide!
We would like to also thank our event sponsors and partners for all the help and a special thanks to Lexi Ambrogi and Natalie Roberts for coordinating such an awesome event.
Be sure to save the date for our next countywide cleanup, Coastal Cleanup Day, happening Saturday, September 19th, 2015! More information can be found at www.CleanupDay.org.
Breaking Down Coastal Cleanup 2013!
Today’s blog post comes from our new marketing intern, Bri Lobato. Bri is currently studying environmental science and loves cheese enchiladas and English 
Bulldogs. We’re thrilled to have her helping out at ILACSD!
As of September 21st, San Diego is free of 75 tons of debris thanks to each and every one of our 7,500 volunteers this year at I Love A Clean San Diego’s Coastal Cleanup Day! Families, friends, students, sponsors, locals, visitors, and even some loyal pets took some time out of their Saturday morning to help keep San Diego beautiful, and everyone involved made this event more successful than ever. Across a record breaking 102 sites in San Diego County, volunteers of all ages came out to give back to the city they love by picking up litter, participating in service projects, and storm drain stenciling.
Kickoff started at 9am at the Gompers Park site where 250+ volunteers heard from Supervisor Greg Cox, Mayor Todd Gloria and Councilmember Myrtle Cole, as well as I Love A Clean San Diego’s very own Executive Director, Pauline Martinson, to get them fired up before going out into the neighborhood and local creek to hunt for waste. News crews were there to capture their influential words about why events like Coastal Cleanup Day are important to both the environment and the community. Volunteers at this site were able to choose among creek cleanup, mulching, invasive plant removal, painting a mural made of tire scraps, trail building and stenciling storm drains, so everyone was able to take part in their own way. No matter the task, every volunteer across the County was given a free Chipotle coupon as a reward for their efforts…and who doesn’t love Chipotle!? When 75 tons of trash is involved, you bet there were some unusual and interesting items we heard about: bowling balls, a rooster, a steering wheel, and even a sweet female pit bull puppy were recovered! (She has been rescued and is on the road to recovery). There was also a “Bling Your Bucket” contest, where kids decorated their own reusable litter hauling bucket.
Shout out to our site captains who were instrumental in making the event run smoothly and effectively. BIG thanks to our sponsors San Diego Gas & Electric, the Country of San Diego, Think Blue San Diego and MANY more for making Coastal Cleanup Day an event that so much of the community could participate in and enjoy! A very special big thank you goes to all of the volunteers who made Coastal Cleanup Day worthwhile, and who made a difference by taking part in the largest volunteer event that San Diego County has to offer. It wouldn’t be possible without you guys! We will see you all next year for CCD 2014!!
Top Six Reasons to Volunteer for Coastal Cleanup Day!
With Coastal Cleanup Day just a few days away, we thought we’d give you a few more reasons why you should get up early on Saturday and join us to volunteer! If these reasons don’t motivate you to give back this weekend, we don’t know what will! Sign up now at www.cleanupday.org.
You should volunteer for Coastal Cleanup Day if…
…you think albatross’ stomachs shouldn’t be filled with plastic!
…you like free stuff, like reusable tote bags and lunch from Chipotle!
…you need community service hours for school or work!
…you can’t afford a gym membership, but you want to get a workout in – we’ve got tires galore to push up canyons!
…you’ve ever swam in the ocean with a cigarette butt!
…you want to keep San Diego America’s Finest City!
Meet Coastal Cleanup Day Site Captain, Johnathon Stone!
Today we introduce Johnathon Stone, one of our awesome site captains for ILACSD’s September 21st Coastal Cleanup Day. Read on to learn more about why Johnathon thinks CCD is such a great event, and why he thinks you should join!
This year, as he has years in the past, Navy service member Johnathon Stone will lead as a CCD site captain. Stone notes that ILACSD helps San Diegans enjoy a clean environment, and Coastal Cleanup Day is a huge part of this. It is important to ensure our communities, canyons and beaches are clean and safe for kids and those who use them, he says. Deciding to be a CCD site captain was an easy decision- Johnathon enjoys recruiting people to volunteer, get outside, and make the environment a better place. For Johnathon and thousands of other volunteers, CCD is a great opportunity to get out and about and help our communities!
This year, Johnathon’s cleanup site is Fiesta Island. It is centrally located and accessible to volunteers from all around San Diego County. Fiesta Island is a beautiful place and kid friendly; you can get kids to help and bring your dog! This year, Johnathon looks forward to seeing everyone out and about and having a good time while making San Diego County a cleaner, better place.
Join Johnathon at Fiesta Island or any of our other 90+ cleanup sites county-wide. Sign up today; we’ll see ya on September 21st!
