Beach and River Cleanups:
Trash knows no boundaries . . . it is found on our beaches and can be carried to the ocean through our waterways! Unfortunately California’s Central Coast is no exception to the litter problem; our beaches and rivers need your help. Debris removal is an important way to stop marine debris before it reaches the ocean.
Plastic Pollution Classroom Education Programs:
The goal of this program is to provide an interactive and fun learning environment to students in order to promote a sense of wonder, empowerment, and connection to the ocean and our watersheds.
Trash Prevention Programs:
The proliferation of the disposable lifestyle is a relatively new phenomena that is leaving behind a wake of trash and litter. Before we had access to cheap disposable plastics, people commonly used durable, reusable items such as glass jars and containers, cloth bags, and lunch boxes. Save Our Shores collects trash data during our beach and river cleanups which helps us determine the most common types of debris in our communities so that we can strategically promote reusable alternatives that can replace these pesky items. We believe that litter prevention is the ultimate way to eliminate marine debris.
Members of the Santa Cruz community came together in the late 1970's to fight the placement of oil rigs offshore along the Central Coast. They won the battle in 1978 and the all-volunteer grassroots group decided to create a citizen-action organization to protect the Monterey Bay from future threats. Since then Save Our Shores has offered various programs always with the goal of protecting the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Currently, Save Our Shores offers programs under three initiatives, Plastic Pollution, Ocean Awareness, and Clean Boating. Plastic Pollution focuses on beach and river cleanups and education about plastics on our health and the environment. Ocean Awareness includes our advocacy in the community including our work with local governments to ban problematic materials such as Styrofoam, which we helped to ban a few years ago, and now, plastic bags. Clean Boating includes our efforts to educate boaters in the four harbors of the Sanctuary on how to reduce small oil spills and how to be more environmentally responsible in their boating practices.
Save Our Shores’ mission is caring for the marine environment through ocean awareness, advocacy, and citizen action. Our current goals are to meet and surpass our successes from last year. Last year, we participated in 82 events where we reached 7365 adults and 1114 youth about ocean health. We hosted 279 beach and river cleanups where 5705 adults and 3687 youth helped us to pick up over 18,000 pounds of trash and recycling! We also gave 145 school presentations through which we reached 3903 students. We held 14 Dockwalking events where we effectively educated 939 boaters about clean boating practices. And we trained almost 40 Sanctuary Stewards to become consistent volunteers for us throughout the year. To continue our amazing work in the community we need support to pay for our 6 staff members, for program supplies and marketing expenses, and to keep our office running!
Name of Organization:Save Our Shores
Number of Paid Staff:6
Number of Volunteers:50
Total Organizational Expenses:$633,720
% of Organizational Overhead Expenses:23%
What makes Save Our Shores distinct is that we have been in the Santa Cruz community for over 30 years. We are trusted, and we have proven that we can deliver on our programs. Most people in the community know about Save Our Shores and know that we can galvanize community members for a cause at any moment’s notice. We are able to reach 4000 people on one day for Annual Coastal Cleanup Day in September. And when ocean crises arise, the community comes to Save Our Shores. This year we are focusing on banning plastic bags along the Monterey Bay and already have an Alliance of over 24 organizations backing our efforts.
Hi. My name is Ben, and I live in Danville, California. As a Jewish boy approaching his Bar Mitzvah, I needed to begin to write my D'var Torah, or Torah interpretation. But I needed to know what I was going to write it about. The options were endless. Some people compare their Torah portion to their daily lives; some get way off topic and talk about their garage band; some focus on the literal interpretation of a single word. So what was I to do? The day that I received my portion I knew. The portion (Vayikra/P'kudei) was about building the tabernacle that would hold the torah (i.e. how many cubits to make the posts, how to make a crimson dye by squishing beetle larvae, what silks to drape over the tabernacle, etc.). Not exactly the most interesting portion ever. But it was mine. So I read it again and again, and finally found a keshar, a connection to my life. Everyone in the torah portion was volunteering for what was holy to them. Be it sewing, welding, or donating, all of them found it important to contribute what was holy to them.
So what was holy to me? The obvious answer is to go on about how I loved studying the torah, or to give a mushy-gushy response about Judaism's effect on my life. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a faithful person, I believe in Adonai, Chai, G-d. I pray and go to synagogue. But I wanted a deeper answer, a more personal answer. So I asked myself, in the words of my amazing rabbi, Dan Goldblatt, "What do you stand for? What pushes you, moves you to keep trying?" I made a mental list. The Beatles? I'm obsessed with them, but I don't worship them. Sports? No, too off topic. Music? No, special, but not holy. And then, my eureka moment: the ocean. The ocean was my true home. No matter where I went, there was an ocean. All around the world, the ocean, or "yam", it was there. All one ocean, connecting us as humans. One Species. One Ocean. One World.
I was born in Monterey, CA. I always tell people, that living there, you had 2 things to do. There was the aquarium, and the ocean. I grew up surrounded by fish. What a wonderful childhood. And it stayed with me. Every time anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I would always simply and intelligently answer "a marine biologist". When we moved away from Monterey, a part of me was sad. I would miss the aquarium. The sand in between my toes. The cool, winter days where I could take shelter in the aquarium. The otters and seals, floating motionless like large, furry logs. But I knew I could keep all of that in my heart. And keeping it there made my love for the ocean flourish, consuming my life in a burst of wave and salty smells.
So I came back to the future, there on my bed, contemplating my torah portions. And I knew I wanted to talk about beach cleanups, and, of course, the Blue Marble Project. Working with a group called Save Our Shores (S.O.S.). I worked with them a lot and ended up receiving a Blue Marble. And I wanted to pass it on. And pass more on. So for myBar Mitzvah, we ordered Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Guides and recycled blue marbles. Everyone at myBar Mitzvah ceremony was encouraged to take a marble, and pass it on to someone doing an "ocean mitzvah", or good deed. So now, when I look back on that day, I see the look on my grandparents' faces, the torah, Rabbi's blessing, the emotional moments of my parents blessings, and a basket. A basket on a back, wooden table, next to kipot (skull caps). A basket filled with shining blue eyes of Adonai, G-d of the ocean, watching me, smiling, gleaming in the light.
Ben Freiman D’var Torah
Shabbat Shalom.
My torah portions,Vayak’heil and Pekudei,are about the building of the mishkan.The mishkan, or tabernacle, was a portable sanctuary.In the torah timeline,this is right after the building of the golden calf.I think my first read through,when I saw what it was about, I just thought “boring”.But as I read it again and again,and studied with Rabbi Dan, it became very interesting. Even though it is just about building the mishkan,there are several hidden messages.It is like a crème brule; the initial look is hard and strange, but as you dig deeper, you find a sweet and creamy center.One of the most interesting messages in the poritions was about volunteering.Vayak’heil literally means “he brought them together”. Moses gathers up the people and says that we’re going to build the Tabernacle.And he asks them to give.He can see that our true nature is that of a generous heart. When he calls the people to give,he also calls them to experience their own giftsand the gift of a generous heart.The people were passionate about building the mishkan, and so they just kept giving. Moses had to ask them to stop giving because they had started to give much more than needed. Even then, they gave their talents to help the physical building of the mishkan. When they could not give material, they gave their time and efforts.
Moses knows that to build something the community needs, the community needs to work together.And they did work together well.This made me think of my own life.I have spent a lot of time cleaning beaches.It is quite the experience.You feel excited to help, anxious to get there.I discovered it through a school volunteering project.After that, we started going once every few months.You make new friends. I’ve met park rangers, vounteers, leaders of cleanups, and we’ve become friends.You know what it feels like to be an animal.You feel their pain.I remember, perfectly clear,finding a pelican, sprawled out on the beach with a voleyball pole through its neck.After seeing things like this,you want to get out and be an ocean advocate.
I have been cleaning beaches for about 2 years,and it has become a big part of my life.It has made me an advocate for the ocean. Rabbi Dan told me an interesting quote that fits hand in hand with this:Rabbi Abraham Heschel said“Let young people be sure that every deed counts,that every word has power,and that we can all do our share to redeem the world in spite off all its absurdities, and frustrations.Let them remember to build a life as if it were a work of art”. I think this means that kids should know to share,to volunteer and to always do their best at a young age.This comes into my life in many ways.One example is that through volunteering,I help the world overcome its wrongs and replace them with some rights.
Also, through babysitting I make sure the kids I babysit find what they love, and also make sure they learn to share and be nice to one another.
We can also make a change as a community,and as a world.I discovered something called the Blue Marble Project last year when I was cleaning a beach with my family in Davenport.We were working with other volunteers from an organization called Save Our Shores (S.O.S.).I had worked with S.O.S. before,but never with the woman who was leading the cleanup that day. After we were done,she gave us and all the other volunteers a blue marble and a sheet about what it was.Turned out that this little blue marble, made of recycled glass, was much more important than it looked. We weren’t supposed to keep the marble,but instead to pass it on to someone doing an “ocean mitzvah.”The program is all across the world,and there are blogs on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.about how people got Blue Marbles or passed them on.It was also highly endorsed by S.O.S.,and other ocean organizations.So, we decided to get involved.You may have noticed that by the door is a basket filled with blue marbles.Everyone is invited to take one.But pass it on:to the man who picks up trash in a drain to the ocean;to the woman who cleans with ocean safe chemicals;
to the family with a baby in bio-degradible diapers so that nothing goes to a landfill;to anyone performing Tikun Olam, healing the world.
I am very much into helping the environment. Through studying with Dan,I discovered the idea of being eco-kashrut.It sounds complicated, but it is not that bad.Kashrut means kosher.The idea is to not only eat kosher, but to act kosher.Make sure that the meat you eatis from animals that were humanely treated.Make sure the shoes you buy were made in fair, legal labor, and not by underpaid children in a third world country. Make sure the grapes you eat weren’t doused in pesticides that harm the planetor you and others that consume them. Make sure not to buy general stuff
that was transported thousands of miles,burning fuel and harming the eco system.All of this, cleaning beaches, the Blue Marble project, trying to be eco kosher, and teaching lessonsabout how to treat the world make up the miskan in my life.[pause]What is the mishkan in your life? [pause]
Shabbat Shalom.
We have many youth volunteer opportunities. We educate hundreds of youth through our education programs, inspiring them to clean the beaches and become stewards of our ocean. We host youth cleanups on beaches and rivers, and we work to youth engage youth in our community advocacy efforts. For example, we invited youth from one of our schools to come to a Santa Cruz City Council Meeting to advocate for banning plastic bags, which empowered the youth and also made a strong argument against plastic bags!
Name:Allison Titley
Title:
Address:345 Lake Avenue, Suite A / Santa Cruz, CA 95062
Telephone:831-462-5660x1
Email:info@saveourshores.org
Website:saveourshores.org