Heal The Bay receives clean-athon funds




KIDS GO ‘GREEN’ WITH GREENBACKS—Sarah Abramson Sikich of Heal The Bay, far right, accepts a check from the students of Mariposa School at a morning assembly. The children raised the funds at their annual Beach Clean-athon. Mariposa principal Jeff Lough, far left, looks on.

KIDS GO ‘GREEN’ WITH GREENBACKS—Sarah Abramson Sikich of Heal The Bay, far right, accepts a check from the students of Mariposa School at a morning assembly. The children raised the funds at their annual Beach Clean-athon. Mariposa principal Jeff Lough, far left, looks on.

Mariposa School of Global Education recently donated $ 1,200 to the environmental group Heal the Bay. The school raised the funds at the fourth annual Beach Clean-athon.

The sixth-grade Student Site Council members presented the check to Sarah Sikich, Heal the Bay’s director of coastal resources, at the school’s morning assembly on May 21.

The Beach Clean-athon is a schoolwide event that involves all grades. In April, kindergarten classes cleaned Malibu Lagoon and other grades cleaned Malibu Creek State Park to learn how the creek flows into the ocean and affects oceans and beaches.

Fundraising efforts included students sponsoring other children, startup lemonade stands, kids’ video messages filmed at the beach and handwritten letters with ocean-themed art. Donations came in all sizes, including coins from children’s piggy banks and online donations from out-of-state friends and relatives.

This year, Mariposa formed a partnership with Heal the Bay to help support student conservation efforts and as part of the school’s educational components, which include outdoor and environmental education and community outreach.

Heal the Bay is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven environmental organization dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters and watersheds safe and clean.

The remainder of the funds raised will go directly to programs, resources and services for Mariposa students.

The Beach Clean-athon also partners with Mountains Recreation Conservation Authority, with whom the school has an ongoing educational relationship that involves naturalists visiting the school to teach about nature and educational hiking field trips in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Previous beach cleanup in conjunction with MRCA took place at Zuma Beach and Will Rogers State Beach.

Mariposa’s 2013 Beach Clean- athon will be at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and will include an educational tour at their learning center.

Mariposa is an alternative public elementary and middle school in Agoura Hills with approximately 300 students that integrates a Waldorf-inspired curriculum and includes outdoor and environmental education.


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