Westbound Boarder

Volunteering to help clean up the California beaches is always a good thing… but its an even better thing when free tickets to a Jack Johnson concert are on the line.  This Saturday (May 22), volunteers who participate in a 2 hour beach clean up in Santa Monica, CA through Jack Johnson’s All at Once Community and Heal the Bay will receive free tickets to a Jack Johnson concert on the Santa Monica pier the following Monday (May 24) at 7pm.  Heal the Bay is a great organization to get involved in (especially for us surfers who want nice, clean beaches!) and Jack Johnson’s new organization sounds great, too!  More information about the event and clean-up here.

You can also win tickets by following @jackjohnson and @brushfire on Twitter.  So, get cleanin’ and tweetin’!

This past Saturday, the city of Los Angeles gathered at 70+ locations to clean the SoCal waterways.  Deemed “Coastal Cleanup Day,” the monumental event gathered more than 14,000 LA County volunteers and removed over 150 tons of trash from regional areas.  Volunteers unearthed some pretty unusual debris, including a dead sea lion, a severed goat’s head, a restroom urinal, a dilapidated 10-foot skiff, and a fake mustache (I don’t know about you, but surfing in a sea of fake mustaches is a little less-than-appealing; kind of gross to think about).

Great work to all the volunteers involved in the initiative, and I know I’ll personally take it upon myself to keep the beaches around me clean as can be; I invite you to join me!  For a look at some of the photos from the event, check out the Coastal Cleanup Day Flickr gallery.

This Saturday, Sept. 19 from 9am to noon, Heal The Bay, a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters and watersheds safe, healthy and clean, is attempting to organize the World’s largest, single-day volunteer event to clean up the five trashiest waterways in California, as well as 70+ other destinations.

Called “Coastal Cleanup Day,” tens of thousands of Los Angeles County residents will mobilize on Saturday at more than 70 other cleanup sites, from Pasadena to Palos Verdes. Volunteers will canvass beaches, parks, creeks, lakes, highways and alleys to remove ocean-bound trash.  Volunteers will also get a hands-on education about harmful marine debris and easy steps they can take throughout the year to keep local watersheds clean.

I know, I know, it’s always hard to devote precious weekends to volunteerism (especially when it involves getting up at 9am!) but it is important to keep our beaches clean and safe, and its a great way to give something back to the great surf Mother Nature continues to provide (Karma, anyone?)  So if you don’t have plans yet on Saturday, this will be a fun, rewarding event to participate in.

For more information on how to participate and cleanup site locations, visit the Coastal Cleanup Day Web site.