Creek to Bay 2020 Packing Party

Our 18th Annual Creek to Bay cleanup is on Saturday, April 25th from 9am-12pm! At last year’s event, 4,900 volunteers removed over 108,970 pounds of litter and debris from 117 sites throughout San Diego! This incredible impact was made possible by volunteers like you at the Packing Party last March, who assembled the supplies for each of those 117 sites in just four days.

In preparation for this year’s cleanup, we are looking for volunteers for our Packing Party to assist in assembling boxes of supplies to make this 18th Annual Creek to Bay cleanup a huge success. Volunteers will report to one of two locations in Kearny Mesa: our new office located at 5797 Chesapeake Court, Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92123 (Thursday 3/12), or the Kearny Mesa Recreation Center located at 3170 Armstrong Street, San Diego, CA 92111 (Friday 3/13 and 3/16-3/18).

Tasks include counting and bundling supplies, packing boxes with specific quantities of items, double checking the packed boxes to ensure all of the supplies are there, and helping load the packed boxes into our truck and back to our office. Some heavy lifting may be needed, but is not required. Volunteers will sit, stand, bend, and walk. Volunteers aged 14 and up are preferred, as attention to detail and counting are a crucial part of this assembly.

Whether you sign up for a full day or just a few hours, we would love your help! A minimum of 2 hours per day is required. We will offer service forms for those in need, and this opportunity is available for court-ordered hours. If you or anyone you know is interested in helping, please sign up by emailing Jackie Blumenthal with the date(s) and time(s) you would like to volunteer at jblumenthal@cleansd.org or (619) 787-2604.

THURSDAY

3/12

FRIDAY

 3/13

MONDAY

3/16

TUESDAY

3/17

WEDNESDAY

3/18

10AM-4PM

10AM-4PM

10AM-4PM 10AM-4PM

10AM-4PM

ILACSD office

5797 Chesapeake Ct Ste 200
San Diego, CA 92123
Kearny Mesa Rec

Center

3170 Armstrong St
San Diego, CA 92111

Kearny Mesa Rec

Center

3170 Armstrong St
San Diego, CA 92111
Kearny Mesa Rec

Center

3170 Armstrong St
San Diego, CA 92111

Kearny Mesa Rec

Center

3170 Armstrong St
San Diego, CA 92111
Second Floor Meeting Room Meeting Room Craft Room

Craft Room

Preliminary CCD Results are in!

The dynamic duo, Lexi & Moriah!

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!

Vol in Action - Moonlight
Counting all those cigarette butts and bottle caps, although tedious, makes a huge impact worldwide!

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!

ICCD_2015_D40_21
Volunteers at Sweetwater Marsh working together to do some heavy lifting.

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!

emerald hills park - Ani
Hotline Assistant, Ani spreading mulch with a smile!

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.

Team Silvergate recovering items from water
Volunteers at Sun Harbor Marina didn’t stop at the sand.

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.

teeth
Dentures found at Beacon’s Beach definitely made the top of the odds items list!

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!