Part of the Solution : 700 Valley Schoolchildren Spend Earth Day Cleaning Up Beach

Twenty-five years after the first Earth Day was born in a swell of national concern for the environment, many of the adults who lived through it now feel helpless to remedy the still smoggy skies, polluted waters and endangered species.

But not the 4,000 Los Angeles-area children who came out to clean Dockweiler State Beach and Long Beach City Beach on Friday, this year’s Earth Day. Not only do they believe there is a solution, they believe they are part of it.

Under a hazy blue sky, 12-year-old Jindry Acosta of Sylmar knelt on the damp sand near the water’s edge and poked at a piece of kelp with a gloved hand. “There’s oil stuck on it,” he said as he examined the blackened seaweed. “People have to stop doing it. A lot of animals are dying.

“A lot of people could die, too.”

The children, including 700 from the San Fernando Valley, collected tons of litter and debris on the beaches as part of the Adopt-A-Beach program overseen by the Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education and the California Department of Conservation. The children had collected for recycling more than 150,000 bottles and cans this school year to pay for their bus rides to the beach.

Their funds were matched by a grant from the Department of Conservation.

As the buses rolled into the Dockweiler parking lot from Van Nuys, Sylmar, Burbank, Pacoima and other locations throughout the city, hundreds of green-shirted Los Angeles Conservation Corps members jumped aboard with litter bags and plastic gloves and instructions for the children. Then the buses headed for cleanup sites.

Velinda Pelayo, a sixth-grader at Harding Street Elementary School in Sylmar, sat in a window seat gazing at the ocean, anxious to get started.

“I want to take care of the Earth so we can live a better life,” she said. “There won’t be any more trash if we pick up most of it.”

When the children finally reached their spots, they hit the beach, armed with sea-green bags for recyclables and royal-blue ones for trash. They spread out across the beige sand, a sea of bright hats and colorful T-shirts.

They picked up cigarette butts, bits of styrofoam and surf-worn glass. They found needles, a baby bottle, plastic straws and even a piece of what was once a city sign.

Organizers knew that the 4,000 eager children could not dramatically change the face of the beach, marred even from a distance by white dots of plastic and styrofoam. But they hoped the awareness spurred by the classroom lessons and the massive cleanup would spread from the children to families, friends and fellow students.

“The message is to the adults,” said program organizer Michael Klubock, a former sailor who created the program. “The whole goal is that the community sees kids caring about the environment and follows their lead.”

The Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup was the first of about 50 events that will take place across the city this weekend as part of the third annual Great L.A. Cleanup, including projects in the wetlands, the dunes and the inner city.

Taking a break on a bench with a group of friends, third-grader Gharieb Elsayed surveyed the beach in front of him.

“It looks a little better,” he said. “If we all work together we can probably do it. The beach is a fun place to go but it’s not fun when there’s too much trash.”

Back where they began, the children ate lunch in roped-off areas, forming the letters to spell CLEAN UP L.A. with their bodies. As a Coast Guard helicopter flew overhead, the children waved and chanted: “Clean up L.A. Clean up L.A.”

Kirsten Pressman, who formed the bottom of the letter “L” with her sixth-grade classmates from Harding, suddenly burst into the chorus of “We Are the World.”