Storm Drain Stenciling Day

The time has come – Join I Love A Clean San Diego and Think Blue San Diego for our twice-annual Storm Drain Stenciling Day at Moutain View Park! We will walk around the neighborhood with cleanup supplies picking up litter and stencil storm drains with a conservation message.

You may be wondering, “What is storm drain stenciling?” Our cities have storm drains those big gaps in the curb you see around our homes and businesses. These gaps are meant to move water out of the neighborhood very quickly so when it rains our streets do not get flooded. This is an important safety feature that keeps us from walking in foot-deep water during the winter.

Because our storm drains are designed to move water quickly through our region out to the coast, they do not have filters that would impede water, which means unintended things like litter can flow with water into the drains and into the ocean!

Therefore, it is important to not only preserve our storm drains, but also remove litter from around them.

By picking up litter with us on Saturday and stenciling drains, you can help protect the neighborhood and all the places downstream, including the Pacific Ocean! You can also earn community service credit for your time.

What do you need for this event? Just a ready-to-help attitude!

  • We provide cleanup supplies and the stenciling kits with maps to help you find drains.
  • Our goal is to have 5 drains stenciled per group.
  • We encourage you to wear clothes you do not mind getting paint on, and closed-toed shoes.
  • KITS ARE FIRST COME FIRST SERVE!!! Arrive on time to secure a kit for your group.

This event requires a signed release-of-liability waiver for all volunteers, and anyone under 18 needs a waiver signed by a guardian. Please download and print the waiver below, sign, and bring with you to this cleanup. No printer? No problem! We will have waivers at the check-in table for volunteers. If you are under 18 please have your guardian check-in with us at the cleanup to sign-off on your participation.

One more thing: if you want to bring your kits home with you to stencil around your neighborhood, please do! Be sure to check in with staff at the table to receive your instructions for totals sheets and reporting the number of drains you complete before you leave with your kits. Thank you for spreading this conservation message!

Saturday, March 25, 2023 9am-11am

Mountain View Park, San Diego, CA 92119

Record Breaking Creek to Bay Results

c2b16 mountain view park (247)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!

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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.Before and After - Postage Stamp Pt.

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.Fox Canyon

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!

Tonks1
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!

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Thank you from the ILACSD team!