Page 12 - Sonoma County Gazette October 2018

Coastal Cleanup Day Celebrations
By Stephanie Lennox, Envirichment
CLEANUPS City of Santa Rosa and
Clean River Alliance. Creek Stewardship Program conducts this monthly cleanups
Oct 6th 10am-12pm
First Saturday Cleanup
Santa Rosa Creek, Prince Memorial Greenway Meet at Olive Park
105 Orange St, Santa Rosa, CA 95401
Oct 20th 10am-12pm
Colgan Creek Volunteer Days (ages 8+)
Elsie Allen High School: 599 Bellevue Ave, Santa Rosa
Flat Rock Park Volunteer Days (ages 8+)
Flat Rock Footbridge: 4227 Flat Rock Circle, Santa Rosa
Oct 27 9:30-11:30am
Info: robin@cleanriveralliance.org
Adopt-A-Beach®
The Coastal Commission runs a year- round cleanup program called Adopt- A-Beach®. Help us keep the California coast debris-free all year long.
Park-A-Month Volunteer
Program
Info: www.coastal.ca.gov
Santa Rosa
9am - 12, rain or shine.
2nd Saturday of the month. The Park- A-Month Volunteer Program offers fun, family-friendly events where residents can make a difference in their parks.
Oct. 13, Steele Lane Park
Nov. 10, Steele Lane Community Center
Dec. 8, Bennett Valley Senior Center
www.srcity.org/parkamonth. 707-543-3279 volunteer@srcity.org
Laguna Stewardship Days
Sept.–May.9am-Noon
Volunteers assist in willow sprigging, exotic plant removal, native plant and tree planting, trails construction and maintenance, and restoration project monitoring. Training is provided. Snacks are on us, but do bring
gloves, water, and a friend! No RSVP required. For locations and more information contact Brent Reed, 707- 527-9277 x.101
or brent@lagunafoundation.org www.lagunafoundation.org
School Yard Clean Up
Want your students to participate in Coastal Cleanup Day but can’t get them out on a field trip to a beach or local waterway? Want to show them that environmentally responsible behavior can begin at their school and in their own neighborhood? You can organize a Schoolyard Cleanup and accomplish all of these goals. Info: www.coastal.ca.gov
We made history on Saturday September 15, 2018.
According to Coastwalk, our regional Coordinator for California Coastal Clean Up Day 2018, this year’s 1,200 volunteers broke all previous Sonoma County attendance records for this annual event!
And the best part? Together we removed 8.7 tons of debris from our county’s inland waterways and from our beaches.
That’s 17,400 pounds of trash that has forever been captured, no longer lingering in our environment sneaking down our watershed and into the ocean. Combining ours efforts with all other California county cleanups resulted in 700,000 pounds of debris removed on this one day. Then we keep on adding our efforts together.
California added the rest of the nation and then combining with over 100 other countries on this International Coastal Cleanup Day will likely result in over 20 million pounds of trash picked up worldwide.
Margaret Mead said it best, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Yes, indeed!
Water flows with gravity both over and underground, efficiently weathering and transporting what it comes across down to the closest body of water. This makes our waterways state of health a clear reflection of what’s happening
in and on the land surrounding that waterway. Whether examining water quality samples or pulling out trash, our waterways make excellent mirrors to observe our collective behaviors in. Our creeks, rivers and ocean reflect back to us the results of our daily lives. How great to have such an unpretentious yet knowledgeable reservoir of information about how we are caretaking our precious natural resources.
12 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 10/18
The more people that join our County’s cleanup efforts, the more trash we are able to capture. Please check the Gazette cleanup calendar and come out and help us fight the good fight when you can, our waterways are speaking and strongly urging us into action. And, you can mark your calendars now to join next year’s International Coastal Cleanup Day because it always occurs on the third Saturday of September.
Thank you to all those brave enough to look at our local waterways’ reflection, assume responsibility and take action for bettering our environment’s health. Let’s keep taking actions to reduce our daily trash footprint as well as keep coming together to remove actual tons of trash like we did on Coastal Cleanup Day 2018 because our creeks, rivers and coast need the love.
The Sonoma County Gazette keeps us all informed on the impressive assortment of monthly cleanup activities. Gratefully, we have the help of many effective environmental stewarding resources like Clean River Alliance, Friends of the Petaluma River, Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods and the City of Santa Rosa’s Creek Stewardship Program to name only a few.