LA River Clean Up

Hello everyone, my name is Gustavo Medel. On this years earth day, April 22nd, I participated in the LA river clean up.

In class we are learning about the effects of pollution in our oceans. The plastic waste in society is all carried over to the ocean and is creating a large soup like consistency in the ocean which is endangering the marine wildlife. The river clean up is supposed to give us an idea of how much trash can pile up in a certain geographical area in an extended period of time.

I learned that we really can make a difference in the cleanliness in our society. A little help here and there really does go a long way over time. Each member of our class grabbed a bag for the trash we were to pick up and scoured the lake for any signs of waste. What we found were multiple items, such as: clothing, baseball cards, cans, chairs, the list goes on and on. I filled up a bag within an hour or so and helped out with a stand the rest of the time. The experience was enjoyable, but not at the same time. I did not like being in the hot sun on a Saturday morning picking up trash that did not belong to me, but in the back of my head I know I was helping a greater cause and that made it better in the end.

EarthDay/ foLAR

LA River Clean Up

Hello my name is Diana Barcenas I am in Professor Hernandez 1005B-82 English class this semester 

we are learning about the LA River, and how we can reduce our carbon foot print in a way. Last semester we did service learning for Heal the Bay, we went to Santa Monica Beach to clean up the trash that doesn't make it to the trash bins. The reasons why I went to the beach clean up was to prevent more trash from being pulled into the ocean. Now the LA River clean up was something similar in the way that we still needed to pick up trash. It is upsetting knowing how much trash was inside the river especially caught in between plants and trees. 

I arrived at the foLAR a bit but once I got there I was trying to look for the professor I bumped into some of my classmates I followed them to go meet up with the professor, after we met up where the professor was located I went to go pick up trash and take pictures. I started looking for trash and all I found was plastic bags and blue plastic tents that were destroyed. I with another classmate looking for trash and he found a huge frog sitting by the water and we tried looking for more but that seemed to be the only frog there. Being there at the river made me realize that we need to have more people involved in their community for future generations to enjoy. If we don't take care of our environment then who will? It is all up to us to make our little world a better place as long as we are around.

This was an amazing learning experience for me to know how our LA River is doing, which is not so great. At least we have great people doing great things for the environment, I could only imagine what our world can look like in a few more year if it weren't for these environmental programs that bring people together as one big community that is concerned with the well being of a small part of our planet. I hope to continue in this journey and find myself going to more environmental movements like this one.

FOLAR Clean Up

Greetings, my name is Peter Maldonado, and today I'll be delving into my experience helping clean the LA river with FOLAR on Saturday, April 22, 2017. To begin, I had never done any type of community service of this sort so this was all a new experience for me. I arrived around 9 am with one of my best friends and colleagues who was participating in the same event, and immediately we were off to work. We were handed gloves and bags, and we ventured into the dirty river. I searched around for a nice shady spot and went to work. Clothes, paper, trash, etc. You name it, we found it. There was so much trash, it was almost unbelievable. I managed to clean up two bags worth of trash by the end of the day, and while it was very intensive due to blazing hot sun and grueling work, it was definitely fulfilling. I enjoyed the feeling of helping clean my community and giving back. For this reason, I would definitely partake in a similar event, given the opportunity.

FoLAR Experience

Hello my name is Jerome Pineda. I am currently taking English 2030 with Professor Hernandez. I participated on the FoLAR clean up  on Saturday April 22, 2017. I arrived on the site at 7:13 in the morning due to complications for a carpool ride. I helped out with the setup of the banners for the cleanup. After my group and I volunteered to help handing out the trash bags for the incoming people. Once the crowd died down my group and I decided to go help out the cleanup. The things that we found were a bit surprising. For the majority of things that we collected was simply scraps of plastic bags scattered across the river. I found a 7-up can embedded underneath the ground. One of our group members found a motherboard for what we believe was an iPhone. The most surprising and strenuous part of the cleanup was finding a copper wire embedded under the rocks. My group and I strained ourselves to get the copper wire free. We pushed rocks aside, dig through the dirt, kept pulling the wire until we plucked it out. Although the morning was grueling the whole event was fun and I hope to join it again next year.

Helping out at basecamp

Copper wire that was buried in the ground

Hello my name is Cesar Becerra, I attended the L.A. River clean up on Saturday April 22, 2017. Having attended last semesters service learning cleaning (Heal the Bay), I know what was coming my way, but over all it was different experience from Heal the Bay. At first when I arrived to the location where the event was being hosted I thought that the river was clean, but only realized that it was filled with trash once I got down too see it up close. The trash that  I found in the river was pretty much anything you can think of, but it seemed that plastic was growing in and around the plants.

When I started to pick up trash I found myself picking up plastic bag that would fall apart when I pulled them off of trees or from under some dirt. The picture above looks like the was growing plastic, but in reality the plastic is just stuck to the tree. Other than plastic I saw things like shopping carts, tires, rusted out metal and cloths. Most of those items looked like they have been their for a while because they had so many things on top of them and that made them hard to get. In the short time that I was there, I saw tons of bags filled with trash. See so many people coming out to clean a place that is know to be one of the dirtiest place in L.A. was cool, it was not only college students but their were also family's, High school student, and other organizations out their helping to improve an important place for the L.A. county. Over all I really liked this service learning cleaning because I have lived near the L.A. river my whole life and it wasn't till this day that I saw trees and other life in the river I'm use to seeing concert and trash in the river.

 

   

Hello, my name is Kimberly Zepeda. I attended the L.A River cleanup on Saturday, April 22, 2017. It was a very hot day but we went out there to do what we had to do. It was a great experience and was glad to be part of it. Last semester I wasn't able to participate at the beach cleanup but I enjoined this one. I was amazed of all the trash I seen that day which was market carts, clothes, and food consumers buy and how there wasn't too many cigarettes. I pass by a part the L.A River everyday coming to school and I never noticed how much trash there is. I was also amazed of how many people went that day and even little kids were helping. It made me feel sad/mad that many people litter without thinking of the future and the next generation. I saw homeless people living there, I saw one with three cats. Experiencing nature this kind of way made me realize that I haven't experience it as much as I would before. I can't imagine how the L.A River would look if we (Families or Friends) wouldn't be involved cleaning up.

 Not only did I see trash but I was able to see two ducks in the water. It's sad to think that animals like the ducks to suffer from all this trash that is being litter from people. It wasn't even half an hour that we started, and I was almost done filling up a bag of trash. I would definitely do it because I am helping my community to stay clean. In the reading, "A Life of the Senses" by Richard Louv, he said "As we grow more separate from nature, we continue to separate from one another physically." This cleanup was an experience for me of nature because instead of staying home laying down or doing something unproductive I was outside helping out at the Friend of the L.A River.

My name is Gregorio Rubalcava and I like to keep my place clean. I decided to go to the L.A. river cleanup, because I think that the river are one of the most important sources of water in our planet. I learned that everything we trow in the streets and in the rivers, it ends in our oceans. It was an experience that I will never forget. My classmates and I collected one full bag of trash and some other big thinks. For example tires, dvd players, and shopping cars. This is an experience that I recommend to everybody, is something that will help our planet and it will make the ocean less contaminated.