PLAYLA City at the Seashore
Everyone in LA deserves a chance to experience our coast! While LA is famous for its beaches, in reality there are only a handful within the City of Los Angeles including Cabrillo Beach, Venice Beach and Dockweiler Beach. This project increases equitable access to Cabrillo Beach Coastal Park by bringing families from throughout the city to participate in an evening of ocean fun, which includes watching grunions, small, silvery fish that hurl themselves on the sand as part of their fascinating mating ritual.
What is the primary issue area that your application will impact?
Green space, park access, and trees
In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)
In what stage of innovation is this project, program, or initiative?
Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)
What is your understanding of the issue that you are seeking to address?
Cabrillo Marine Aquarium hosts thousands of school children visiting on field trips each year. Many of them come from schools only 20 to 30 minutes away, yet every year we hear excited exclamations from students who are seeing the ocean for the first time. This shows us that students and their families do not have equal access to the City of Los Angeles's coastal parks and beaches. Through this grant, we seek to address this access issue by bringing families from throughout the city to the Aquarium and its surrounding coastal park, to enjoy an evening together during a grunion run. In addition, we plan on partnering with the Department of Recreation and Parks and Los Angeles-based museums to exhibit and share information about their activities and free programs to increase awareness of and participation in outdoor and educational opportunities in local neighborhoods.
Describe the project, program, or initiative this grant will support to address the issue.
LA City at the Sea Shore is an exciting event that brings families from every LA City Council District to Cabrillo Beach Coastal Park. To make the event a success, we will partner with LAUSD and the LA City Council offices to identify Title 1 schools and local nonprofit organizations that serve underserved families. These families will be provided free transportation to the event and food and education / science-related giveaways.
The goal will be to provide 30 buses (two per Council District), which allows up to 120 people to participate from each Council District. Families will hatch grunion eggs, learn about local sea life at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, experience life-sized blowup whales and connect with a variety of educational opportunities offered by LAUSD, the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks (RAP) and many other local museums and organizations. These goals expand upon a similar, but smaller event we've hosted previously in partnership with LAUSD.
We believe that everyone in Los Angeles should have the opportunity to experience the local seashore and this project is a great step towards making this a reality by providing greater access to Cabrillo Beach Coastal Park. The Aquarium is also a part of RAP, which operates a network of parks and free and/or low-cost services throughout the city. RAP staff will also be participating in the event to share free local programs and services they offer.
Describe how Los Angeles County will be different if your work is successful.
In our experience, families who play together and share outdoor experiences together build bonds that last a lifetime. This also applies to families who learn together. We think it's so important for families to experience ocean and marine science together because parents who experience ocean activities with their children, such as hatching grunion eggs and watching grunion spawn on the beach, tend to be more encouraging and supportive of their children pursuing science and STEM related careers. Having more families connect to the outdoors and science can only benefit Los Angeles County by inspiring environmental stewards to care for our natural places and future scientists to study and better understand our natural coastal and ocean environment.
Approximately how many people will be impacted by this project, program, or initiative?
Direct Impact: 3,500
Indirect Impact: 7,000