On January 16, 2006, national Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, dozens of community members joined LA Conservation Corps youth to lay the groundwork for a new community garden in Watts.
The mission for the day was to help the L.A. Gardening Council prepare this area to welcome new community gardeners looking to start plots at the site. Together the volunteers and young people between the ages of 13 and 24 successfully:
• Removed 2,500 sq. ft. of graffiti from the walls of the future garden
• Cleaned three alleys and six vacant lots in the neighborhood, filling two 40’ dumpsters and two stake side trucks with trash and debris
• Cleaned the grounds at the Kedren Community Center
• Removed eight huge invasive oleander bushes
All of that in only three hours! Now double that, multiply it by approximately 400, and you get the approximate amount of service hours performed by LA Conservation Corps youth in local communities every day!
Our special thanks to the community volunteers from the following organizations:
- Alta Med
- American Red Cross of Greater L.A.
- American Red Cross - San Gabriel Pomona Valley
- American Red Cross of Ventura
- Enterprise Fleet Services
- Lord, Bissell & Brook
- The Dianna Lynn Christian Academy
This event was made possible by generous support from the the Corps Network and the Corporation for National Service. For more information, please visit: www.nascc.org , www.americorps.org, and www.mlkday.gov.
