The best of our newest adoptable site, Dixon Lake

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ILACSD’s Admin Assistant, Erika, took a weekend hike to explore one of our newest adoptable sites in Escondido.

This past Monday was Summer Solstice, which marks the longest day of the year and the official onset of summer! With the longer days, it’s the perfect time to get out and explore the endless hiking trails around San Diego County. This weekend I did just that and took a trip to Dixon Lake, one of I Love A Clean San Diego’s newest inland adoptable sites in North County.

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The perfect spot for a  picnic. For easy cleanup, choose reusable utensils and pack snacks in tupperware instead of sandwich bags that can get blown into the lake.

When I first walked through the ranger station, I was pleasantly surprised to see several covered and uncovered picnic areas. Below is one of the areas I found, which I will definitely be coming back to for a summer picnic! I spotted several trash cans in the area, but whenever there aren’t any, the most important thing to remember is the principal of pack it in, pack it out. By making sure that you carry out all the trash that you brought into the open space or park, you can easily help to reduce litter at the source.

Walking past the picnic tables, I crossed a little bridge which led to the 2.1 mile trail that follows the edge of the lake. The trail was mostly flat and perfect for hikers of all ages.  027

About half a mile into the trail there was the opportunity to turn onto a bridge covered in reed grass. My curiosity got the best of me, so I veered off the path and crossed the bridge, and I’m so glad I did!

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The bridge led to a dock right on the water, providing a beautiful view of the entire surrounding area. I took a few moments at this spot to enjoy the morning tranquility of the lake.

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Behind me, there was a fisherman enjoying some early morning fishing off the end of the dock. One more of the activities you can take advantage of at the lake!

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Dixon Lake is also a great fishing spot for locals!

On the way back to the parking lot I decided to take the service road, which runs several feet above the trail. I was a little disappointed to stumble across some trash in the middle of the road. With just a few feet of separation between the road and the lake, the trash could easily end up in the water within a matter of seconds. Thinking back to the beautiful views from the dock, I know I would not want that view ruined by a fast food bag and coffee cup floating in the water.

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Unfortunately, plastic bags, pet waste as well as food wrappers and bottles are commonly found along the trails.

Interested in keeping Dixon Lake clean? Visit AdoptSD.org to learn more and to schedule your own cleanups! We provide a free educational presentation to kick off your first cleanup, and if you complete three cleanups over the course of a year, you can apply to have your group’s name posted on a sign on site. 021

Whether it’s your favorite, beach, canyon or park, let’s keep San Diego clean, together. Find out how you can get involved in a program that fits your schedule at CleanSD.org!

Hundreds attend kickoff event at Dixon Lake

Here at I Love A Clean San Diego, we like to make it as easy as possible for people to volunteer with us. That’s why we love our Adopt-A-Beach and Adopt-A-Canyon programs—people can schedule beach or canyon cleanups any day of the year, and we provide all of the cleanup supplies for free.

Thanks to a grant from the Escondido Charitable Foundation, we are now able to bring this program to two sites in Escondido—Dixon Lake and Kit Carson Park. These are the first adoptable sites in inland North County, and we’re thrilled to have this program as an option for people who live far from the nearest adoptable beach.

This past weekend, we hosted a kickoff event to officially launch the program. We invited volunteers to join us at Dixon Lake in northeastern Escondido.

And we sure did kick off this program with a bang! A grand total of 402 volunteers collected 348 pounds of trash and recycling from around the lake and nearby Daley Ranch hiking trails. Here’s a recap of how the event unfolded.

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Our volunteers listen attentively to the kickoff and safety talk from Lexi, our Development Manager. She covered topics like how trash travels through the community, why cleanups are important, and local recycling rules. She also talked about how to get involved with the newly launched Adopt-A-Canyon program in Escondido. Some of these volunteers have already signed up online and scheduled their next Escondido cleanups!

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A team from the Division 37 East Key Club paused for a photo in front of scenic Dixon Lake. Throughout the morning, lake visitors thanked our volunteers for helping to keep the park clean and litter-free!

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Miles of trails run along the lake, so our volunteers were able to spread out and cover a lot of ground. Here, a team from North Coast Church walked along one of the lake trails hunting for litter with our trash grabber and bucket in hand!

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You never know what you’ll find at our cleanup events! This young volunteer wins our Most Unusual Item prize for finding this full bottle of sparkling cider. Here’s to you!

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We weigh all of the trash and recycling collected at our cleanups as a way of measuring our impact and accomplishments. When volunteers use their own buckets instead of single-use plastic bags, we simply subtract the weight of the empty bucket to determine the weight of the trash. The buckets get emptied right into the dumpster—no single-use plastics needed!

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A big thanks to this massive volunteer team from UCSD’s Upward Bound program. We love working with big groups like this one to get a lot accomplished at our events. These young students were a huge help!

Interested in adopting one of these sites? Visit www.AdoptSD.org to learn more and to schedule your own cleanups. We can provide a free educational presentation to kick off your first cleanup, and if you complete three cleanups over the course of a year, you can apply to have your group’s name posted on a sign on site.

We’ll be back at Dixon Lake, as well as at four other Escondido sites, for our big countywide event, the Creek to Bay Cleanup, on Saturday, April 23rd from 9AM-12PM. Registration opens April 1st at CreektoBay.org!

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Local Businesses Step Up for Creek2Bay

Community Programs Manager, LexiToday’s blog comes from our Community Programs Manager, Lexi! If you have ever volunteered for one of our cleanups there is a good chance you two have crossed paths! In addition to community cleanups, she also helps coordinate our two countywide cleanups, Creek to Bay and Coastal Cleanup Day. Creek to Bay is the first countywide cleanup of the year and there will be close to 100 cleanup sites across San Diego County! Read on to learn more about how local businesses have stepped up to protect and conserve our environment!

Preparations for our Earth Month volunteer event, the Creek to Bay Cleanup, are in full swing here at I Love A Clean San Diego. With 95 cleanup and beautification projects happening throughout San Diego County on April 25, it’s certainly a busy time around our office!

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This event would not be possible without the support of some of our business partners in the community. We’d like to take this opportunity to recognize some of these groups that help make this event a success.

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One of our newest partners for this event is local startup BoxedGreen. This eco-friendly company is helping San Diegans reduce their environmental impact by offering gently used cardboard boxes for $1 each. Through unique partnerships with local businesses, BoxedGreen connects community members in need of boxes with nearby retailers who have boxes to spare.BoxedGreen Founder

BoxedGreen will be donating a portion of the cardboard boxes we use to pack up the cleanup supplies for our 95 different Creek to Bay sites throughout San Diego County. We can’t wait to put these recycled boxes to good use!

 

RECON Environmental, Inc.
Maple Canyon in the Park West neighborhood of San Diego looks quite a bit different now than it did 4 years ago, thanks in large part to cleanup efforts led by a team from RECON Environmental, Inc. RECON, a local environmental services firm, wanted to use its expertise in habitat restoration to revitalize a canyon in their neighborhood through community involvement.

RECON staff began serving as site captains for this canyon in 2011, focusing first on large trash items that had been illegally dumped years ago. Once these items were properly disposed of, RECON began to focus on habitat restoration by removing invasive plants and slowly returning the canyon to its native state of coastal sage scrub.

Maple Canyon cleanup led by RECON Environmental, Inc.
Maple Canyon cleanup led by RECON Environmental, Inc.

To keep the canyon looking great between our countywide cleanup efforts (Creek to Bay in April and Coastal Cleanup Day in September), RECON also coordinates their own cleanups of the canyon through our Adopt-A-Beach/Adopt-A-Canyon program. RECON is a perfect example of how a company can take action to beautify the environment right in its own backyard!

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For the last several years, we have worked with our friends at Sony to offer a fun photo contest for all of our volunteers. The winner of this year’s contest will receive a brand new Sony Cyber-Shot camera! Last year’s photo contest theme was “Be The Change,” and we received tons of great shots of volunteers beautifying their local communities.

Last year's Sony Photo Contest winner!
Last year’s Sony Photo Contest winner!

And not only is Sony supporting our event by sponsoring the photo contest—they also gather a volunteer team every year to participate at one of our many cleanup sites.

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Sony employees volunteer with us year-round in addition to our countywide cleanups! Here is a group of Sony volunteers who joined us at Kids’ Ocean Day in February!

Interested in getting your business connected with our Creek to Bay Cleanup? Visit www.CreektoBay.org to find out about how you can get involved! If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor, please download a copy of our sponsorship packet. For more information, please email Natalie, Senior Director of Operations, at nroberts@cleansd.org. Thank you!