Cleaning up the Coast

Raiders pitch in during California Coastal Cleanup Day

Cleaning up the Coast

beach-clean-upFor some, Sept. 17 was just another relaxing Saturday, but for others it was a day to help out their community by cleaning up the beach.

Many students from CI’s AVID and Marine Science Academy took part in California Coastal Cleanup Day, in which people meet up and dispose of waste lingering along the shores. The AVID group went to Silver Strand Beach and the MSA students went to Hueneme Beach.

This year, many CI students showed their altruism by going out of their way to help.

Senior Geeriwin Galimba stated, “Community is a priority.”

Another student, Brenda Morales, was going to teach catechism, but decided to cancel so she could go to the clean-up.

At Silver Strand, everyone helped collect over 69 bags of trash. These bags of trash were filled with the usual litter you would find on streets: food wrappers, cigarettes butts, napkins, water bottles, and so forth. Some interesting finds included toilets, guitars, and even rubber chickens.

Students were left in shock with the amount of various, miscellaneous junk picked up. Kim Sanchez, a junior, shared her experience on their strange findings. She stated, “We were walking around picking up trash, like cigarette butts, water bottles, when one of my friends called me over and showed me what they had found: It was a butcher knife!”

Everyone, along with Sanchez, was stunned by what they had found. Sanchez reasoned, “That’s why we go clean up, so that things like this aren’t just lying around.”

At the end of the day, Silver Strand Beach was left spotless and students were much to their disappointment rewarded with an expired free fish taco card to Rubio’s. Adrian Galimba shared, “I didn’t even know it was expired until I was at the register.”

When the students were asked if they would help clean again, they were all very enthusiastic in their responses. Steven Hernandez said, “Yes, I had fun being with my friends and helping my community!”