I completed my community service event for this class through the community service fraternity I am a part of called Alpha Phi Omega. I did many different community service related activities throughout the quarter, two of which related to the environment.
The first took place on Saturday April 4th during a retreat to the beach. This took place at Point Mugu not far past Malibu. The second day of camping we walked a couple miles down the road to the nearby beach and did a beach cleanup. There we a lot of us there (about 45) so we ended up picking up much of the trash that was strewn across the beach. Some of the items we found included car parts, bottles, cans, food wrappers, and old construction material. The purpose of this event was to clean up a beach and help to preserve the habitat of the wildlife as well as promote awareness about how our actions affect the environment around us. The waste that we cleaned came not only from the beach dwellers who left their trash there, but also from the sewage systems that empty their contents into the beach. This has disastrous effects on ocean ecosystems as the pollution from chemicals kills the natural wildlife and objects that can also be found in the sewage can be swallowed by animals and kill them. It is important for us to remember this and accordingly change our actions to prevent damaging the ocean. This activity was effective in that we picked up much of the trash lying on the beach, but it was ineffective in several ways. One, we only tackled the surface of what was polluting that beach. We did not venture into the water to see what was lying underneath nor could we clean up the chemicals in the water itself. Also, we may have become more aware of the dangers beaches are facing, but our group is miniscule compared to the millions of other people on earth who are as of yet unaware of their actions. To fix this awareness must be spread throughout the population.
The other event took place on Sunday May 3rd on Hollywood Boulevard at a local shrine. The name of the even I attended was “Big Sunday.” It was basically an event where we took materials people donated such as overstocked books from local bookstores and clothed that were donated and packed them into boxes to give out to families who are less fortunate and have come across hard times and need the help.
-Ashton Yoon
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