Tourism Cares gives L.A.'s waterfront landmarks a good scrub-down

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Tourism Cares for Los Angeles volunteers get their marching orders at White Point Nature Preserve, a 102-acre natural habitat on Paseo Del Mar in San Pedro. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Linda and Bill Androlia clean seeds from a native toyon shrub that will be used for future plantings. Linda Androlia is president of Sunstone Tours & Cruises in Malibu. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Volunteer James Galloway of the Los Angeles office of Cox & Kings mulches recent plantings at ocean-side green space. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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A team of helpers were tasked with cleaning and waxing the Korean Bell of Friendship. It was cast in South Korea and given to the U.S. in 1976 for the bicentennial. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Richard Flores from Hicksville, N.Y., removes grime from the base of the Korean Friendship Bell. Flores works for MaCher, which brands products for the travel industry. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Patrick Marsden, a Venice, Calif., resident who also works for MaCher, works on the bell. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Patrick Marsden uses elbow grease on the 17-ton Korean Bell of Friendship, which sits on a bluff with sweeping ocean views. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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A Tourism Cares team spent the day painting and cleaning the Lane Victory, a 1945 merchant marine ship at the harbor. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Patty Janes displays her team leader T-shirt deep inside the Lane Victory. She teaches hospitality at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Dirt-encrusted historic Jeeps after they were washed and rewashed by volunteers. Among the vehicles: a red fire truck that was used in 1953 during the Korean war. The team also helped create a better visitor experience by removing a fence that had obscured the vehicles. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Tasks on the merchant marine ship included painting tight corridors inside the ship. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Other waterfront landmarks getting the Tourism Cares treatment was the battleship Iowa, above, one of the L.A.’s most recent attractions, and the Banning Museum in Wilmington. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Volunteers from more than 20 states participated in Friday’s event. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

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Stephanie Rennie of Melbourne, Australia, is believed to have come the farthest for the marathon work day. Rennie, who works for MaCher, helped out on the Iowa. (Tom Politeo / For The Times)

By Mary Forgione

Nov. 17, 2014 8 AM PT

It was a landmark day in every sense of the word. More than 250 volunteers from the travel and tourism world swarmed San Pedro last Friday to paint, scrub, plant, mulch and perform other fix-up duties at L.A. waterfront landmarks big and small.

Volunteers came from as far away as Australia and New York City to work alongside locals as part of Tourism Cares for Los Angeles, one of two places this year the nonprofit organization chose to rally its troops for a give-back event. The organization partnered with the L.A. Tourism and Convention Board.

The groups go to cities and towns nationwide to offer TLC at tourism spots -- in just one day. Over the past few years, Tourism Cares has worked in New Orleans, New York City, Sacramento, Peru and other places.

Now it was L.A.’s turn. Some worked on two the city’s floating attractions: U.S. battleship Iowa and merchant marine ship Lane Victory. Others sorted seeds and spread mulch at White Point Nature Preserve, waxed the Korean Friendship Bell and upgraded the Banning Museum in Wilmington.

“We’re all tourism professionals who learned L.A.’s waterfront is such an important part of the L.A. tourism scene,” says Patty Janes, hospitality and tourism professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Her team removed a tall wire fence and cleaned up dirty historic Jeeps to improve the visitor experience.

“They’re getting dirty. They are working and painting,” Ira Cohen, a board member of the organization that supports the Lane Victory, said Friday as he organized buckets of paint. “I’ve never had a group of volunteers that have done as much as they did in one day.”

Tourism Cares Chairman Brad Finkle, who also worked on the Lane Victory, says the organization focuses on preserving and restoring historic sites, gives grants and scholarships for college students interested in the travel industry, and partners with groups globally to help them develop similar projects.

“I painted the central market in Cusco [Peru],” Finkle says. Now the president of Trip Mate travel insurance company in Kansas City, Mo., can add painting the corridors of a 1945 merchant marine ship to his skill set too.

Tourism Cares gives L.A.’s waterfront landmarks a good scrub-down

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