Students lead state beach cleanup effort
By Daily Press staff
Students throughout the state spent Friday cleaning up after everybody else.
About 6,000 kids throughout the state commemorated Ocean Day at the 11th Annual Kids’ Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup. Beach cleanups took place along the length of the California coast, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Huntington Beach and San Diego.
Nearly 3,000 kids from 23 elementary and high schools showed up at Dockweiler State Beach — one of the worst polluted areas in LA County and a popular surfing spot.
Michael Klubock, executive director and founder of the Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education, created the annual event in Los Angeles. The event is part of the Coastal Commission’s Adopt-A-Beach School Assembly Program and City of Los Angeles Stormwater Program. It includes a series of assemblies that teach how urban neighborhoods are connected to the beaches and oceans through storm drains, and addresses the need for recycling and litter reduction in all communities so that neighborhood trash does not end up at the coast.
John Quigley, the famed environmentalist who sat in the tree “Old Glory” in Santa Clarita for months before it was cut down by developers, was the designer of a human aerial photo with the kids at Dockweiler State Beach. He has produced human aerial art messages around the world, which include recent reproductions of three Picasso art pieces in Santa Monica and Miami.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 24, 2004. Read the original PDF.