Photo by Alex Siegel.
On Sunday, November 11 over 100 volunteers from around the area joined ForestWatch, the Santa Barbara Rock Gym, the American Alpine Club – Los Padres Chapter, the Forest Service, Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co., and Lucidity to remove trash and graffiti from in and around Lizard’s Mouth near Santa Barbara. Altogether they removed 1,000 pounds of trash and dozens of graffiti markings from the area.
The Lizard’s Mouth Cleanup is a tradition that was started 24 years ago by local Joel Brown and the Forest Service’s Larry Griffith. We were excited to help organize this year’s fall event and team up with so many great groups.
Volunteers came from Santa Barbara, Ventura, and even as far as Los Angeles County to help clean up the popular destination. Members of Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co.’s Mug Club, students from UCSB and SBCC, and many other people from around the area were among the volunteers.
Will Russ, owner of the Santa Barbara Rock Gym, teaches other volunteers how to safely mix paint and cover the graffiti markings found on rocks throughout the area. Photo by Kevin Lara.
Approximately 1,000 pounds of trash were collected from in and around the Lizard’s Mouth area. Most of the trash consisted of small pieces of broken glass, bottles, cans, and fast food containers. Some scrap metal was also removed from the site.
The Santa Barbara Rock Gym and American Alpine Club helped organize and train volunteers to paint over graffiti among the rocks. Dozens of sites were safely painted to blend in with the natural environment thanks to these volunteers.
After focusing on trash and graffiti for a few hours, volunteers were treated to a raffle featuring items donated by the Isla Vista Food Co-op (which also donated snacks for volunteers), Real Cheap Sports, the Santa Barbara Rock Gym, the American Alpine Club, and Lucidity. Thanks to these sponsors for making the raffle a huge hit and to Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co. for providing free beer vouchers to of-age volunteers!
The last of the volunteers who stayed for the entire raffle. Photo by Alex Siegel.
A big thanks goes out to the wonderful volunteers who spent their morning with our organizations to help make the Los Padres National Forest cleaner. This work would not be possible without the hard work volunteers put in throughout the year. If you want to become more involved in these types of efforts, be sure to join our volunteer list.
See more photos from the cleanup below. Thanks to Alex Siegel Photography and Kevin Lara with Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co. for taking such great photos!
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