Hundreds of Volunteers Spruce Up the Valley

In a collaborative effort to clean up parks and schools and improve communities, hundreds of volunteers took part Saturday in the first Global Outreach Day.

Across the Southland, children and adults worked side by side to paint murals, erase graffiti and lend a helping hand to senior citizens. The project is part of a worldwide, one-day effort to reduce urban blight in 30 countries.

The effort was coordinated by Hope Worldwide, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization that helps lower-income communities worldwide. Among its many programs, Hope Worldwide operates AIDS clinics in 12 African countries and feeds the homeless.

Throughout the Valley, about 600 volunteers worked up a sweat at several projects.

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At Columbus Middle School in Canoga Park, youths painted two new murals while others trimmed trees and bushes in the school’s horticulture area. The courtyard had become overgrown with foliage after the school lost five years of horticulture program funding, Principal Cynthia Augustine said. In a matter of hours, children and their parents were able to clear a fence once covered with shrubbery and found a koi pond buried under branches.

“It looked like a jungle earlier,” 12-year-old Andrew Quint said.

Teachers and students also were scattered throughout the campus painting and repairing murals.

Augustine wanted to add the new murals to the school’s existing pair that were more than 30 years old. When the student painters finished, they signed their names at the bottom of their artwork.

“Instead of being tempted to do something destructive, this project is teaching them to be constructive,” Columbus teacher Carol Barham said. “They get to make a lasting contribution to their school.”

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In Chatsworth, dozens of volunteers picked up shards of glass and other trash at Stoney Point Park.

The park, known for its mammoth rock formations high above the Valley, not only attracts curious climbers but taggers as well.

“I wish we didn’t have to clean up after other people’s messes but that is human nature,” Marie Burnett of North Hills said. “The trash and graffiti ruin the beauty of this place.”

At many other Southern California sites, volunteers were just as busy Saturday beautifying their communities, organizers said.

They planted trees in west Anaheim, refurbished an Oxnard recreation center, tidied up Edison Elementary in Glendale, raised money for children’s tennis program in West Los Angeles and picked up trash and slapped a new coat of paint on several convalescent homes in South-Central.