What to Know
- April 14, 21, 28, 2018
- Three Saturdays
- 100 tons of trash removed in 2017
Were you ever tasked with tidying up when you were a kid, by your parent or a babysitter, and did the whole thing ultimately become a bit of a competition in your mind?
Something you wanted to do quickly and efficiently and, in the end, see how many displaced items you ended up gathering from various parts of your home in a set amount of time?
You can think of the annual Great LA River Cleanup in a similar vein, if you'd like: There's going to be a lot of picking up, litter-wise, over three Saturdays, and if you challenge yourself personally to pull a whole lot of trash out of our urban waterway, well, you'll depart feeling pretty darn proud.
But the true good feeling comes from helping our river, and the many animals that call it home, and the wider ecology of this vital, life-filled place.
For a massive amount of garbage ends up underneath its gentle flow, each and every year, so much so that thousands of volunteers are gratefully called upon to clear it out each spring.
Friends of the LA River, or FoLAR, is the group behind the annual call-to-action.
The Scene
Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.
In 2017, 100 tons, that's tons, as in thousands and thousands of pounds of trash, were removed from the LA River, thanks to dedicated, push-further volunteers.
So are you ready to join the push-further brigade over three April Saturdays in 2018?
Registration for the cleanup is now open, and you can choose to join on April 14, 21, and 28, or all three dates. Various points along the river are tied to particular dates, so check the schedule if you have a certain location you'd like to join.
This is a huge and important effort, and, in 2017, 10,000 volunteers played a part.
And let us return, briefly, to the competition-in-your-own-mind element, a force that may drive a lot of volunteers on during their day out at the water. Consider this: There is a "River Treasures" pile, where the strangest items found in the water are placed.
Odd? Weird? Outlandish? In the pile it goes.
So there's one extra goal to strive for, as you help our dear river: Locating the quirkiest and not-even-est pieces of trash for this infamous heap of weirdness.
Tempted? Of course you are, we'll just bet, and of course you want to love upon the LA River. Start here.
