Unique Partnership Captures Cross-Border Message

SONY DSCFor today’s blog, ILACSD’s Development & Marketing Coordinator, Sarah, collaborated with Lucy Eagleson, Program Coordinator & Media Educator from Outside the Lens (OTL) to highlight one of ILACSD’s most cherished partnerships. Read on to learn more about how we meshed digital media and environmental stewardship to bring our Kids’ Ocean Day aerial art to life!

First, a little bit of background information about OTL, Lucy and how this partnership came to be.

Lucy spends a lot of her time as a Media Educator in San Diego classrooms, helping students find their voice within and express it through digital media arts. By looking at current and historical photography and films, students come to understand that a picture is often worth a thousand words, and sometimes even more. Lucy enjoys partnering with I Love A Clean San Diego for Kids’ Ocean Day because it brings together her passion for photography and making a difference in our community.

Kids' Ocean Day 2012
Kids’ Ocean Day 2012

 

ILACSD staff have worked together with OTL for Kids’ Ocean Day for many years now, but this year we threw Lucy a curve ball – a bi-national aerial art image. Without going into too many details, a bi-national aerial art image posed some challenges for Lucy and the Corporate Helicopter team, but at the end of the day we couldn’t be happier with the end result.

Lucy Eagleson - OTL
“I believe in the power of images and the stories they tell. Images speak where words cannot, and carry within them beautiful narratives that have the momentum to move people to change.” – Lucy Eagleson, OTL

Close to 1,200 students, their teachers and volunteers from both sides of the border came together to remove harmful pieces of beach debris along Border Field State Park and Playas de Tijuana. After the cleanup, one-by-one, the students filled into the aerial art outline to form this year’s cross-border aerial art image and commemorate the first-ever bi-national Kids’ Ocean Day! Below is one of our favorite pictures of the aerial art formation coming to life!

Students filling in the aerial art formation and patiently waiting for Lucy in the helicopter to capture the art from the sky!

 

This stunning image clearly demonstrates that we all need to do our part to protect our environment and that the ocean knows no borders. The message reads “UNITE POR EL MAR” which translates to unite for the sea. This image has received an overwhelming response on social media and from local media alike, for which we are extremely grateful.

UNITE POR EL MAR!
First-ever bi-national Kids’ Ocean Day aerial art image!

It goes without saying that a special “thank you” goes out to Outside The Lens, Lucy, and the Corporate Helicopter team for capturing this powerful image!

Be sure to follow and like ILACSD and OTL on your favorite social media networks to stay connected to the great work happening year-round!

Facebook logo Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/iloveacleansd

https://www.facebook.com/OutsideTheLens

 

Twitter_logo_blueTwitter:

https://twitter.com/iloveacleansd – @ilacsd

https://twitter.com/OutsideTheLens – @OutsideTheLens

instagram logo Instagram:

https://instagram.com/iloveacleansd/

https://instagram.com/outsidethelens/

 

About Outside the Lens – Outside the Lens empowers youth to use digital media to create change within themselves, their community, and the world. Students see how the power of their photos can speak louder than words and even inspire change in the community around them. 

www.outsidethelens.org

 

Greetings from DC!

MJB-2010-photoshop-picToday’s blog comes from our Director of Development & Marketing, Morgan Justice Black, who along with another member of the ILACSD team, are in Washington DC this week for the Keep America Beautiful conference.

 

 

Hello from a chilly Washington, D.C. Even though it may only be 25 degrees outside, we are having a great time at the Keep America Beautiful National Conference learning more about how affiliates throughout the US create vibrant communities through community beautification, litter prevention, waste reduction and recycling! We made it to D.C., despite blizzard warnings and having to sprint through the Philadelphia airport to make our connection. And once we arrived…it was snowing! Quite a change for the two of us, both born and raised in San Diego! Well, the conference kicked off with a keynote address from Peter Kageyama, the man who has written two books about loving your city. How perfect, since we have a little fondness for the word “love” too! He spoke about the importance of gathering people together to interact casually in the outdoors. Can you guess where the most social place probably is in your city? The dog park!

Last night was the awards dinner, and I have to say that ILACSD certainly cleaned up! We were up and down accepting three…yep…three first place awards! And we have the pictures to prove it!

Natalie Roberts, Morgan Justice Black and Keep America Beautiful COO Becky Lyons with out awards!
Natalie Roberts, Morgan Justice Black and Keep America Beautiful COO Becky Lyons with our awards!

Our awards included first place for our Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, a program that we implement in San Diego in partnership with the Surfrider Foundation’s Hold onto your Butts program. Over the last five years, we’ve installed and maintained more than 100 ash receptacles in San Diego, helping make a dent in the amount of cigarette butts picked up during cleanups! In fact, in the areas that we’ve done this program, cigarette litter has decreased by an average 64%! This was a well deserved award for Natalie and her team in the Community Events Department!

KAB pic 3
Natalie accepting the CLPP award from KAB staffer Bronwen Evans.

 

Next, ILACSD was the recipient of a storytelling award, and this is the first year that this award category has been offered! Keep America Beautiful judges sifted through dozens of promotional materials, media articles, social media messages and more to identify five affiliates who are doing best at telling their story of building better communities. This is a true team win for us, as every member of the ILACSD team is involved in writing blogs and contributing to our social media!

Morgan, accepting the Storyteller Award from KAB staffer Mike Rosen, who was celebrating his 3rd day on the job!
Morgan, accepting the Storyteller Award from KAB staffer Mike Rosen, who was celebrating his 3rd day on the job!

The most exciting part of last night was the final awards category, the National Affiliate Awards. ILACSD was honored to receive First Place and awarded “Affiliate of the Year”. The plaque might not fit in our suitcases, but it will make it back to San Diego eventually! This award is truly an honor, since ILACSD has been an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful since the 1970’s. In fact, at breakfast today a man came up to me and told me how proud I should be to be part of I Love A  Clean San Diego because we were (and still are) a pioneer in the environmental movement! Back in the 1970’s, there were less than 50 KAB affiliates nationally, and we were the only one in California. Now there are more than 600 affiliates, and although I am biased, I have to say that we are one of the best!

So cheers from Washington, DC and thanks to all of our supporters for being part of our success!

KAB_pic4

Now it’s time for a nap…this three hour time difference is killer when the conference starts at 8am local time!

 

America Recycles Day 2011!

Every year on November 15th communities across the country come together to celebrate America Recycles Day, a day dedicated to educating and motivating our neighbors, friends and community leaders to recycle!  

America Recycles Day logoThis year, over 800 students at Los Coches Creek Middle School participated in an EnviroFair in celebration of America Recycles Day her in San Diego. I Love A Clean San Diego and The County of San Diego worked together to educate 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students about recycling and the importance of conserving the environment.

Activities included a lesson on recycling rules  and a fast and furious Recycle Relay by I Love A Clean San Diego educators, a composting discussion and demonstration by the Solana Center, watershed model presentations and water quality testing from the Splash Science Mobile Lab, and informational booths and recycled giveaways from Allied Waste, the County of San Diego, and I Love A Clean San Diego.

Greg Bledsoe of NBC San Diego caught some great action shots during the day, click here to view the video!

Los Coches Creek Middle School already has their own recycling program in place, with bins in classrooms and around campus. Shauna Stueve, a teacher at the school, gets help from students to ensure that the program runs effectively and that all recyclable items are placed in the correct bins. The EnviroFair showed students why their recycling efforts are so important. According to Robert Wade, a science teacher at Los Coches Creek Middle School, “Students were engaged and challenged by your staff and they all came away with global ideas they could implement in their daily lives.”

Immediately after school, many of the students and teachers joined I Love A Clean San Diego in a community cleanup in the area surrounding the school. Trash and recyclable materials were collected separately, and many students were surprised at how much litter they found in their community. Sonja Washer, a math and science teacher at Los Coches Creek middle school thanked I Love A Clean San Diego after the event, saying, “Thank you again for your concern for our environment and for educating our students so our futures are cleaner.”

One-Stop Recycling Resource

Have old paint cans, batteries, or electronics lying around the house? I Love A Clean San Diego provides San Diegans with an online recycling database, www.wastefreesd.org, plus a bilingual hotline (1-877-R-1-EARTH) that offer useful tips for safe disposal of paints and other household waste. This information about waste disposal and recycling helps to prevent illegal dumping, and prevents hazardous materials from entering our landfills, stopping serious environmental problems before they happen. In 2011, we provided referrals to keep 19,000 items out of local landfills!

ILACSD’s Back to Blogging

That’s right, after a significant hiatus from blogging, I Love A Clean San Diego is back! We have so much to say, and so many events to talk about, restarting the blog was pretty much a no-brainer. Many of our staff members will be contributing to the blog, and if you’d like to be featured as a guest blogger to give a first-hand account of your experiences with ILACSD please contact u.

We look forward to sharing with you and hearing from all of you who have helped shape the environmental movement in San Diego County!