On a beautiful spring morning last Friday, Ballona Creek Renaissance hosted almost 100 Sony Pictures employees for their annual volunteer day at two different venues.
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While about 30 volunteers enjoyed restoration and planting at BCR's Creekside Native Plant Learning Garden at Culver Cty Middle School, most gathered downstream at Centinela Avenue to do a post-rain creek cleanup.
At the native plant garden, BCR's Amy Rosenstein, Irene Reingold and I guided the energetic Sony volunteers in removing a large volume of unwanted invasive plants and planting 32 new native grasses and flowering shrubs.
From my perspective, Sony's group, which included Janice Pober, Lani Monos, Michelle Minyon, and Carol Reynolds, not only did a good and complete job, they had a lot of fun doing it!”
Meanwhile downstream, BCR's Sandrine Cassidy Schmitt, David Valdez and Michele Bigelow oversaw the volunteer cleanup at the place where the inland water meets the ocean water.
After short talks about safety, watershed and birds, the volunteers collected many bagfuls of trash flushed into the creek by rain the two days before. Among the long list of collectables, they retrieved baseball, bike and motorcycle helmets; a lunch box, a full bottle of bleach, and a $50 bill.
The next open-to-all Ballona Creek Cleanup at Centinela Avenue will be from 9 to noon on Saturday, May 19, (or Saturday, May 26, in case of rain.)
For waivers and details, go online to www.ballonacreek.org.
