In September on our annual Creek Clean up day, we cleaned trash, tennis balls and miscellaneous items out of the Ojai creek bed that rambles through Libbey Park. The day was led Noel Douglas, our Coalition office manager and board member Betsy VanLeit. They worked with twenty volunteers — including Thacher students and Severo Lara, our board chair.
“We took forty bags of trash out of the creek, and five large bags of tennis balls, but we still finished early,” Douglas said. “The creek seemed to be cleaner to us than in past years.” Greg Grant (the Public Works Director for the city of Ojai) was there, and he thought maybe the C.R.E.W., Concerned Resource and Environmental Workers, might have been through there recently.”
The most unusual item found in the creek was a ouija board.
“We had happy, smiley people, eager to go,” Douglas said. “The Thacher students, led by their teacher Juan Sanchez, actually went down twice, they finished so quickly the first time.”
The effort was also aided by one fellow with a van who drove down to the barranca behind the tennis academy and pulled out five large garbage bags of tennis balls.
“There’s some talk of inviting the tennis academy next year to join us,” Douglas said. “Maybe after a tournament they could take a few minutes to find some of the balls that end up in the creek.”
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