Author: Claire Combredet

The club leaders, including myself, first arrived around 9:45 am at Venice Beach for our local cleanup. We organized the tables near the Venice Pier and brought gloves, buckets, water, and snacks for our members. We made a sign-in sheet for the members to mark the number of hours they worked, so we could later assign community service hours. Our members arrived little by little, signed in, and were given gloves and buckets. They then set out to clean the beach and the leaders took turns supervising the tables and equipment, and joining the other members for the cleanup. After a couple of hours, everyone returned to the tables for snacks and water and chatted. Around 2pm, we packed up the equipment and left the cleanup site.

At one point, myself and another leader, my friend Haley, headed out on the beach for our cleanup shift, and met up with a club member, Jack. He pointed out that he had found a drenched sock near the shoreline, which was quite interesting – not exactly in its natural habitat!

This cleanup was great, as always, because we were able to see our members in action, being proactive community members, which is a notion that is implied as a Heal the Bay member. In efforts to reduce our global impact, we have reused our buckets year after year, and hope to get more supplies to support future cleanups with the club. It would be amazing to to provide our members with the best possible equipment to show that we truly care about them and are thankful for their deeds. The project today made our club members feel like they were contributing to something positive and beneficial in their community, and were being proactive with their Saturday morning.

Follow Venice High School Heal the Bay club on instagram for more pictures from their events! @venicehealthebay