Viewfinder: Kids Ocean Day

More than 5,500 elementary school students participated in Kids Ocean Day on Thursday, cleaning up Dockweiler State Beach as part of an annual effort to get more children to the beach and teach them about the environment.

Children from throughout the Greater Los Angeles area arrived in 102 buses and fanned out across the beach to sift through sand looking for trash.

"I got some plastic," said Alex Volkoff, 6, a student at Molokan Elementary School in Hacienda Heights, as he displayed the trash he collected on the beach.

The event was founded by Michael Klubock, the executive director of the Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education, a nonprofit group based in Los Angeles. Others groups hosting the event included the California Coastal
Commission, the City of Los Angeles and Keep Los Angeles Beautiful.

“Clean beaches and clean seas are in everyone’s best interest,” said
Peter Douglas, executive director of the California Coastal Commission.
“The Commission has long been a leader in helping students of all ages
learn about threats to our beaches and ocean. By cleaning beaches and
giving a voice to ocean inhabitants, students up and down the state are
putting into action what they’ve learned about the importance of clean
seas. They remind us that each of us must do our part to care for the
ocean, and that it’s time we stop dumping garbage where it ends up on
our beaches and in the ocean.”

Klubock's group received a $50,000 check Thursday from Jody Che of Miss Me Jeans. Klubock said he was an avid sailor who turned into an environmental educator due to his love for the ocean. Since 1991, nearly 650,000 children have participated in school assemblies on the importance of clean oceans sponsored by the foundation and more than 107,000 children have participated in the annual cleanup.

Check out Kids Ocean Day in this selection of Viewfinder photos.