383 Bay Area Community Members Join Together to Give Back
SCA celebrated Earth Day and National Park Week joined by 383 community members from across the Bay Area. Over 250 volunteers came out to iconic and historic Lands End in San Francisco, and over 130 volunteers made their way to beautiful Tennessee Valley in the Marin Headlands to mark Earth Day and celebrate the National Park Service Centennial. This event was the first Bay Area project in a series of Find Your Park Day of Service events across the nation hosted by SCA in partnership with American Express and the National Park Service.
Side by side with leaders from SCA, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and NPS, volunteers completed an incredible amount of stewardship work – in fact, the most Lands End has ever experienced in a single day! The weather was truly impeccable as volunteers removed over 200 of bags of annual grasses, painted over 600 feet of curb, hauled 10 cubic yards of shale and rock to restore a trail, and removed trash around the park site.
Across the Golden Gate Bridge, volunteers at Tennessee Valley worked diligently to remove 2,760 square feet of invasive plants and restore almost 500 feet of historic fence. The Haypress campsite needed some TLC and volunteers restored over 850 square feet of the campground. Several community members visiting the park independently were so impressed with the work being done that they joined in the fun!
Golden Gate National Recreation Area Park Ranger Marcus Combs spoke to the importance of partnership in order to best serve our park lands and our communities. The collaboration of SCA, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the National Park Service — combining the resources of all three agencies — made the day a success.
Cesar Tapia, Senior Educational Advisor of JCYC-Upward Bound, said it best: “The event was a great way to expose local youth to Lands End and to conservation efforts. The students felt like they were making a difference in their community.”
Special thanks to American Express and the staff of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and National Park Service for making this day possible, and thanks to all of our partners who joined us for service: Alice Fong Yu Alternative School, Chico State Environmental Field School, Disney Store VoluntEars, Enovity, JCYC-Upward Bound, Langan Treadwell Rollo, Outdoor Afro, The North Face, San Francisco State University, School of Global Policy, Southwest Airlines, Universal Giving, WRA Environmental Consultants, Youth Outside, and SCA’s Oakland Community Crew.
See more photos from SCA’s Earth Day events at Lands End and Tennessee Valley in Golden Gate National Parks.
Register now for SCA’s next ConSERVE Bay Area event celebrating National Trails Day on Saturday, June 4th, 2016.