Earth Day Weekend Clean Up in Echo Park on April 25th!

In celebration of Earth Day, we are going to clean up Echo Park on Sunday, April 25th at 10am. We will be meeting at the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Bvld., in the Walgreens parking lot. Bring yourself, significant others, friends, pets, anybody willing to lend a helping hand!!! As always, donuts and supplies will be provided.

For a map of where to meet, click here: Map

We hope to see you there!

Pictures from March 28th Clean Up

Thanks to everybody who came out for our March 28th clean up in Silver Lake. We had a great time seeing everybody and it was a successful kick-off event to spring cleaning season.

Below are some pictures from the event:

A few of our volunteers after the clean up

John is always doing a lot of talking, he should be cleaning!

And, as always, tying up the trash bags filled with some of the day's pickings.

Silver Lake Parkman Triangle Park Project

This past Saturday, John went to help out a group of Silver Lake residents working on creating a small pocket park in the formerly concrete intersection of Parkman and Silver Lake Blvd. The trees are now planted, so if you get a chance, go by and see the work. They are also always looking for volunteers to help out, so if you have some time any given Saturday, stop by and lend a hand!

Below is a picture of the newly planted trees and the dirt area that will eventually become the park:

Vermont/Beverly Clean Up Pictures

Sorry for the long delay in posting pictures of our clean up, but I wanted to make sure to thank everybody who came out for our Vermont/Beverly clean up!

Pictures of the event below:

Our morning clean up team at the Vermont/Beverly subway stop. It was an especially hot day, but we managed to do a good amount of cleaning!

At this point, I think people just wanted to get out of the sun....thanks to everybody who came out!
Some of the trash bags that we filled up around the intersection!

Do Your Part for California Beaches

Today's LA Times has an article about the poor water quality in Los Angeles County beaches due to urban runoff. Our goal at the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project is to prevent problems like urban run-off to the extent we can. Unfortunately, however, the problem persists in our county and it only hurts our coastline. An excerpt from the story below:

"Although California may be famous for its surfing and swimming, the state ranked among the worst in beach water quality nationwide, coming in 22nd out of 30 coastal states. Los Angeles County was home to the most polluted beach water, with 20% of samples exceeding state standards.
. . .
"Bacteria can flow into beach water from sewage accidents such as the spill that forced closures in Long Beach on Monday. Storm water flowing through urban areas can also pick up animal waste, fertilizer, motor oil and other contaminants that are dumped into the ocean."

Check out the full story here.

Vermont/Beverly Clean Up Sat 7/11 at 10am!

Hey all, it has been a brief period of inactivity due to the holidays and hectic work schedules, but we are back on our game now! Join us for our next clean up this Saturday, July 10 at 10am at the corner of Vermont and Beverly!

There is plenty of metered and non-metered street parking in the area, but you can also leave the car at home and take the subway to the Vermont/Beverly stop on the Red Line. You will see us in the green t-shirts on the corner by the subway stop. As always, we will have Tang's donuts for our volunteers (maybe we will even work on bringing some fruit or something as an alternative).

Everybody is welcome and we are looking forward to having a great summer event!


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East Hollywood Clean Up Wrap Up

Thanks to all of those who came out for our East Hollywood clean up. We had a great time and got some great support from the people in the area, even those people just hanging out at the Hollywood and Western subway stop! It was a lot of fun. We took very few pictures but we posted some below. Until next time, keeps those streets clean!

John is going for the high five in that picture, but nobody else is going along.

A picture of a few of our volunteers from the day.

The fruits of our effort, a truck full of trash.

Ahhh, East Hollywood, will the streets ever be clean? With our volunteers, maybe...

Virgil Ave Clean Up Wrap Up

A great contingent of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Clean Up Project came out for last week's Virgil Ave clean up on the edge of Silver Lake and East Hollywood. We cleaned up a few blocks in a neighborhood that could definitely use it, and, most of all got to spend time with some of our great members. Below are some pictures of the clean up and we hope you join us at the next one!


Some of our clean up team returns, check out those awesome t-shirts!


The celebration ensues....good cast of characters!


Take two, John looks less prepared for this picture...


Ahhh, people enjoy our events so much, see the smiles?


The remnants of our clean up supplies...they look lonely...

Virgil Ave Clean Up Sunday May 17

Please join us this Sunday, May 17th to clean up the area where the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project first got its start (for some LANCUP history, click here)-- Virgil and Melrose! We will meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Melrose and Virgil (Map).

Look out for us, we will be in the green t-shirts. We will bring the supplies and Tang's donuts, we just need you! Friends, families, pets, and kids of all ages welcome.

We also hear that there is a new record store/barbeque spot at Bellevue and Hoover, right around the corner, which may be work checking out after.

April 25 Echo Park Wrap Up!

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everybody who came out to lend a hand to our Echo Park clean up this past Saturday. It was a great event and we got fantastic whether. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces along with a number of new ones! We are glad that we have developed such a great group of people in Echo Park and we hope that some of you will join us at other events around town!

Yeah, we are putting the cutest picture first, kids helping always makes for the best pictures!


John with George from the city...he looks very happy about the shovels...very happy:



Two of our great returning volunteers, seriously Tommy we will get you a t-shirt!


Chris and Holly showing off the immense size of the city trash bags:


John is pointing at something here...not really sure what!:


Here is a picture of our unofficial mascot "Salsa"...why is that his name? "Because people like to say Salsa"...:

A picture of the trash gathered in the back of the city truck...thanks George!:

Future Clean Up Projects in Los Angeles

Do you know an area that could use a clean up? Do you want to help organize a clean up in your neighborhood or with your street? Are you looking for an office volunteer project? Or do you just want to lend a helping hand?

Feel free to let us know any time as we are always willing to help out with planning and coordinating events across the city of Los Angeles! Just feel free to e-mail at lacleanup@gmail.com

Silver Lake Earth Day Event

The Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce is holding an Earth Day event in Triangle Park at the corner of Griffith Park Blvd and Sunset Blvd...check it out, we are planning on stopping by!

Who: Silver Lake Chamber Green Committee

What: The Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce Green Committee will create a ball made of nearly 6,000 plastic bags--an estimate of the number of plastic bags Silver Lake stores use in a month--on Earth Day Wednesday, April 22 from 10 am to 4 pm. The plastic bags will be tied and wound into a giant ball by volunteers. The Earth Day Plastic Ball will be available to local schools and environmental groups to promote waste reduction and protecting our environment from the blight of plastic bags. Members of the public are urged to bring discarded plastic bags to the event.

When: Wednesday April 22 - 10 am to 4 pm (Earth Day)

Where: Sunset Junction Triangle Park 3700 Sunset Blvd (north side of street between Edgecliff and Maltman Ave)

Echo Park Earth Day Clean Up April 25!

Join the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project at 10 AM on April 25 in Echo Park for a (post) Earth Day clean up!!! We know Earth Day is actually April 22, but we thought we would make it easier on everybody to take the time to show up. We are meeting at the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Blvd, in the Walgreens parking lot. As always, we will provide donuts from Tang's!

You can sign up on our USA Service website: http://www.usaservice.org/page/event/detail/4rxyg

Check it out and sign up!

As always, you can also follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LANCUP

Follow up on Echo Park Clean Up

We just wanted to thank everybody who came out to the Echo Park clean up on January 31st, we had a great group of volunteers and could not have had a successful day without all of your efforts!!!!

Below are some pictures from our clean up, though, the battery on our camera died, so sorry for having a limited amount of pictures!!!


Two of our younger volunteers drawing people toward our event!:

Jose Sigala, of the Echo Park and Elysian Park Neighborhood Council, speaking before the clean up:


Andrea, giving out nametags (she loves, loves nametags):


The tools provided by the city, much appreciated:


Food provided by the Neighborhood Council, just as appreciated!!!!:

Photos from Service Day Clean Up

Just wanted to post some photos from the Service Day clean up. We had such a good turn out, and we appreciate everybody who came out!

Some of our volunteers signing in:


John before my first spanish television interview


John after his first spanish language interview


A few of our younger volunteers:


Some project runway fans may recognize Sweet P from Project Runway in the photo below:


A few of our dedicated volunteers:

The Stars are Just Like Us!!!

Of course, they do it not out of choice, but still...

[from JustJared]
Michelle Rodriguez Has Trash Time

Fast and the Furious actress Michelle Rodriguez wipes her eyes and carries out some garbage as she fulfills her remaining hours of her court-ordered hard labor community service on Monday in Los Angeles.

The 30-year-old former Lost actress had previously served time at the Lynwood Detention Facility after violating terms of her DUI probation.

Rodrigriguez walked the side of the L.A. freeways and cleaned away debris and weeds in the standard orange vest and hardhat.

Graffiti Cleanup!

One of the other functions of our group (apart from the street cleaning aspect) is taking casual walks around neighborhoods to report graffiti on city property. Reporting graffiti is easy enough, simply call the city's information line at 311 and report the location...the city will then have somebody come and clean off the graffiti within 3-4 days. On our graffiti cleanup days we get a few people to go around and mark down areas with graffiti and later report it to the city. For graffiti on private buildings, we leave a flier with the business or building owner in both english and spanish telling owners how they can get the graffiti cleaned up. Below are some pictures from our clean up on Sunday.


Graffiti on a Hoover street sign:



The person who covers the neighborhood in graffiti, "BUDS"?


"BUDS" again


Writing down the location of graffiti to report:


Graffiti on the Micheltorena stairs:


The back of our nifty t-shirts: