Join I Love A Clean San Diego to be a part of the largest Earth Week cleanup in all of San Diego county! Volunteers are invited to grab buckets and work gloves and make a difference!
This year, our countywide Creek to Bay will have around 100 + locations for volunteers to choose from, inland and coastal. Each location is hosted by a site captain (a specially trained volunteer) and they will be in charge of managing the volunteers on site, properly disposing of the trash and reporting back totals.
Click the registration link below to see our main page for more details and the map of locations to choose from. Sites are still being finalized and will not be uploaded on to the map on the CreekToBay.org webpage until registration opens on April 1.
The Ocean Conservancy and the California Coastal Commission partners with volunteer organizations, such as I Love A Clean San Diego to create the largest, international cleanup day. I Love A Clean San Diego leads the efforts for this day in San Diego County for the 39th year in a row. Data collected from this event feeds into the world’s largest database on marine debris. Join our efforts this year to be apart of this global event!
This year, our countywide Coastal Cleanup Day will have around 100 + locations for volunteers to choose from, inland and coastal. Each location is hosted by a site captain (a specially trained volunteer) and they will be in charge of managing the volunteers on site, properly disposing of the trash and reporting back totals.
Click the registration link below to see our main page for more details and the map of locations to choose from. Sites are still being finalized and will not be uploaded on to the map on the CleanupDay.org webpage until registration opens on September 1.
Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Think Blue San Diego, for supporting this event!
For Earth Day, join I Love A Clean San Diego to be a part of the largest Earth Week cleanup in all of San Diego county! Volunteers are invited to grab buckets and work gloves and make a difference!
This year, our countywide Creek to Bay will have around 100 + locations for volunteers to choose from, inland and coastal. Each location is hosted by a site captain (a specially trained volunteer) and they will be in charge of managing the volunteers on site, properly disposing of the trash and reporting back totals.
Click the registration link below to see our main page for more details and the map of locations to choose from. Sites are still being finalized and will not be uploaded on to the map on the CreekToBay.org webpage until registration opens on April 1.
Today’s blog comes from our Community Program Manager, Moriah who is eager to share this year’s Creek to Bay Cleanup totals!
I am thrilled to announce that the 14th Annual Creek to Bay Cleanup was an overwhelming success! This year, we focused on increasing communities to volunteer together in their own nearby parks, open spaces, canyons, creeks and beaches. In total, our volunteers cleaned up a record 110 sites all over the county!
Totals from around the County are still coming in, but we can confidently report that this year’s event was record breaking all around! More than 6,400 volunteers channeled their appreciation of San Diego’s environment into action and removed more than 170,000 pounds of trash and debris from our county!
What is even more impressive is that considering how many sites we had, we actually collected less trash than usual. That means that we are all making improvements in our daily lives to reduce the amount of waste that we create and dump into our environment! On top of this, volunteers also beautified and restored the local environment through removing invasive plants, planting trees and native plants, stenciling storm drains, and performing a variety of park maintenance projects.
Our staff helped out at our media site, Mountain View Community Park. While across the County we were expecting rain, the sun came through for a beautiful day. More than 200 volunteers ranging from community members to corporate teams came out to beautify the park. We painted bleachers and buildings, planted day lilies, stenciled storm drains on neighborhood streets, and removed more than 4,000 pounds of debris from the park and surrounding community. It is so inspiring to see members of the community heartened after connecting with the beauty of their local environment.
At almost every cleanup event cigarette butts and plastic items are our most commonly found items. This year was no different, but there were quite a few found items that took our site captains and our staff by surprise. Our North Swan Canyon site in City Heights found 13 rolls of piano music from the 19th Century, quite a few sites reported finding small toy dinosaurs, and New Roots Community Farm found a litter of kittens from a cat that lives at the garden! We are happy to say that the kittens are safe and sound and one of them even went home with Leila, our Recycling Program Assistant!
Meet Tonks aka Lil Sprout!
Thank you again to all of our site captains, volunteers, event sponsors and partners for all of your support! Stay tuned for our final totals, and save the date for our next countywide cleanup, Coastal Cleanup Day, happening Saturday, September 17th, 2015! More information can be found at www.CleanupDay.org!
I Love A Clean San Diego appreciates all the hard work our volunteers put in to our cleanups in order to keep San Diego beautiful. Today, we would like to highlight one our amazing volunteers who has taken on the role of site captain at Dixon Lake in Escondido. If you’d like to join her at her site or one in your neighborhood there’s still time to register at CreektoBay.org!
Lori having a blast at last year’s Dixon Lake cleanup!
Lori is a program assistant with the recycling division in the City of Escondido. At the recycling division, Lori handles the disposal of hazardous waste for the city and public education about waste diversion. Through her work, Lori attends farmers’ markets and schools to demonstrate repurposed crafts and recycling 101 as ways to reduce waste.
Lori originally got involved with the Creek to Bay Cleanup a few years ago when she accompanied her supervisor to a site captain meeting. After attending a few more site captain meetings, Lori decided this year she would be a site captain herself at Dixon Lake.
The Creek to Bay Cleanup gets the community involved and invested in protecting our environment. Lori says, “People come to the sites and make a positive impact on the environment.” She believes that every piece of trash counts and that it also is very eye-opening for members of the community.
When asked why the Creek to Bay Cleanup is so important to her community, Lori said, “We are keeping the area clean, families are out and bonding, and the park rangers enjoy it.”
At Dixon Lake there are few recycling receptacles. Lori hopes to ultimately change that and match every garbage can with a recycling bin.
Lori keeps coming back every year to the Creek to Bay Cleanup because it is a rewarding few hours. She encourages others to come out and spend a few hours with their families to enhance our environment. Lori believes Dixon Lake is more than just a lake, “it’s a beautiful part of Escondido that brings many people together”.
Join us April 23, 2016 at one of our 110 Creek to Bay Cleanup sites! If you’re in the Escondido area, join Lori at Dixon Lake or find a site in your neighborhood at CreekToBay.org!
We’ll hope you join us at one of our 100+ sites as we beautify San Diego!
We are enhancing our environment, starting in your neighborhood.
A big thank you to Lori for all her work as a site captain and to the Escondido Recycling Division for supporting I Love A Clean San Diego’s Creek to Bay Cleanup. Thank you for investing in a clean San Diego!
Each year, I Love a Clean San Diego hosts the annual Creek to Bay Cleanup, with over 100+ cleanup sites. We like to highlight our volunteer site captains who go above and beyond to help make this event possible. For today’s blog, we’ve chosen Brendan Reed from the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority to tell us about his journey to help keep San Diego clean and how he and his team are making a difference in our community. Read on to learn more about how Brendan got involved and how you can make a difference at a site near you.
Brendan is a seasoned volunteer site captain and is committed to keeping San Diego clean. When he isn’t volunteering with ILACSD, you can find him at the San Diego Regional Airport Authority, where he is the Environmental Sustainability Manager. Brendan’s main focuses are energy and water conservation, air quality management, and clean transportation at the San Diego Airport.
Having such a passion for sustainability Brendan finds himself as the site captain at Spanish Landing Park East in Point Loma – what he considers “the front door step” for the traveling airport passengers. Spanish Landing is a relatively new site, which Brendan believes makes it an “untapped” area for cleanups. While the site is generally kept clean, Brendan says that you would be surprised by the amount of trash you can still find and cleanup, especially objects like cigarette butts, old fishing line, and other smaller items.
Small pieces of litter really do add up!
Brendan first started volunteering with ILACSD ten years ago when he was the environmental manager for the City of Chula Vista. What keeps Brendan coming back year after year? Brendan says it’s, “ILACSD’s mission and their on-the-ground projects.” Brendan feels that through cleanups, communities are engaged and it’s a great benefit not just for the environment but for everyone. Brendan encourages others to come out on April 23rd at one of the 110 sites because even their smallest actions could make all the difference. “With 5,000 plus volunteers we are making a difference and that’s inspiring”.
It’s more than a cleanup. Creek to Bay is about community.
He encourages those who are looking to get involved with I Love a Clean San Diego to find a site that has meaning for them. By volunteering at the Creek to Bay Cleanup, we can help reduce our impact on the local environment.
Keep San Diego thriving and show it some love! Save the Date for the Creek to Bay Cleanup happening on April 23, 2016 by registering today at CreektoBay.org!
A big thank you to Brendan Reed for all his work as a site captain and to the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority for supporting I Love A Clean San Diego’s Creek to Bay Cleanup.
Thank you for investing in a clean San Diego!
Thanks to San Diego International Airport for their support!
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.
Lots of large items and invasive plants were found in the creek bed but with the help of our amazing volunteers we removed a lot of it!Emily, Environmental Educator and Annie, strike a pose while sorting trash collected at our Southcrest cleanup site!
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!
We’re thankful for the ongoing support of County Supervisor Greg Cox! Here he is lending a hand by painting picnic tables to help beautify the park!
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 beautifieda 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.
The ILACSD team hopes to see you at our next countywide cleanup, Coastal Cleanup Day, happening Saturday, September 19th!
It’s one of our favorite days of the year...the day that Creek to Bay volunteer registration officially begins!
Plan to spend the morning of April 25th with ILACSD staff and thousands of other volunteers from across San Diego County to protect and enhance San Diego’s treasured natural spaces. But don’t take our word for it. Read on to hear from one of our newest site captain teams, the Trails Committee of San Elijo Hills from San Marcos!
Once upon a time, there was a group of concerned residents who recognized a growing litter problem in their community. Instead of turning a blind eye, they chose to band together to protect their neighborhood by hosting cleanups. They called themselves the Trails Committee of San Elijo Hills. Soon after forming, they realized that they needed some help to get their vision off the ground. So Crystal, a member of the Trails Committee of San Elijo Hills, and her team turned to ILACSD for guidance and supplies.
In a recent conversation with ILACSD, Crystal shared that “The Trails Committee of San Elijo Hills is just a small group of dedicated community members. Without I Love A Clean San Diego, pulling off a cleanup of this magnitude would have been a huge effort.”
In Crystal’s words: “ILACSD is already so good at coordinating cleanups” and “they make it so easy” to get involved that it was a no-brainer to volunteer for Creek to Bay.
Well, this little group of concerned citizens organized their first cleanup last year as part of ILACSD’s annual Creek to Bay Cleanup. The results? To their surprise, more than 100 people showed up to clean up all 18 miles of the San Elijo Hills trails! What originally started as a small group of concerned community members grew almost ten-fold overnight. When asked about her favorite part of the Creek to Bay Cleanup was, Crystal replied that she enjoys connecting with others that are passionate about protecting the environment and seeing them get excited about what they are able to accomplish in just three hours.
Crystal also shared with us that cleanups like Creek to Bay are important for two reasons:
1) Volunteers physically remove the trash – instantly making our environment better.
2) The cleanups bring awareness and educate others about the problems that littering causes – encouraging community members to think twice before littering has a lasting impact.
Volunteers of all ages, including youth, are encouraged to participate!
For more information and to register for Creek to Bay, please visit www.CreektoBay.org! If you’re feeling on the fence, take these words of encouragement from Crystal, “Three hours seems like a lot of time to give on a Saturday morning, but by the end you’ll surprise yourself. You’ll have a lot of fun and you’ll also gain a greater sense of pride for your community.”
San Diego County is connected through a network of watersheds and the San Elijo Hills Trails of San Marcos are no different. Trash flows from the trails, to Copper Creek, into San Elijo Lagoon in Encinitas (another C2B cleanup site!) and eventually out to the ocean!
Today’s blog comes from our Community Program Manager, Moriah who is eager to share this year’s Creek to Bay Cleanup totals!
