LA River Clean-up 2013

My name is Carolyn Molina (the one in white shirt). I currently attend Cal State LA as a freshman. This quarter a group of students had the opportunity to attend the Great LA River Clean up. When my professors first mentioned LA had a river, it surprised me because I really did not know there was a river in LA. When you usually think of a river you see trees, plants, rocks, and a beautiful place where you would go to relax. Before going to the river I Googled some pictures just to get a view of what I was expecting when I attended. The main thing I saw when I seen these pictures were bridges and the river surrounded by concrete, it didn't even look like a river almost like a ditch of some kind. I was excited to go because it would be pretty cool to volunteer to clean up a historical place. When I got there I saw the middle part of the river and it was beautiful, nothing that I ever expected. It didn't seem like there was too much trash but there was a few pieces here and there. We started walking down to pick up any trash we found, the main trash we collected were aluminum cans. I seriously thought I would get a lot of money if I took them in to recycle. As we turned the curve to try to get to the other side it seemed to get a bit boring because there wasn't as much trash to pick up, so we walked back where we started and were on our way home. This was a great experience to help protect our environment and I think I will volunteer again to help keep our home clean. :)