Thank you all for your donations, support, encouragement and belief in a our (native) grassroots effort to make a difference in our community. We could not have done this without the help and support of community members like you.
As you all know, this Sunday, November 23 was our first groundbreaking. Since our inception in June, we have finally planted our first native and drought resistant plants. We had nearly 20 volunteers show with many more with us in spirit. The project took about 2 hours to complete and we can now proudly say that downtown Long Beach has an example of what landscape should be. If you go to the spot on Ocean and Pacific you will see tiny baby plants and a giant agave. Don't let their size fool you, within a year these plants will be large beautiful examples of what the water wise landscape has to offer. Another plus, many of these plants are quite fragrant and are likely to attract hummingbird and butterflies, granted the landscape of downtown reflects an urban ecological nightmare in many ways, but now there is a sign of hope. By planting these plants and creating awareness of the rooftop we hope to beautify we are making a giant step towards two major issues: water wise landscaping and the need for community to come together in central areas and congregate much like we have done since the beginning of humanity. Instead of the city being a cold cement filled place where every man is for himself, we hope to create a community area where every man, woman and child can enjoy the wonderful things that make life beautiful: art, culture, plants, and the fact that when we work together we can do amazing things.
I want to thank all of the volunteers who came out to help, may you now proudly know that you have made a difference in our community, one that will inspire others. If you were unable to attend, do not despair; this is only the beginning. We still have a giant rooftop to be filled and we have to convince the city that we can come together and create a functioning civic center full of art, plants and imagination.
Our next step is getting together and creating a portfolio that lays out the details of what we plan on doing to this center. If you are in any way interested in helping assemble this and or have any artpieces, sculptures, plans for plants, organizations that would like contribute, ideas for helping create this as a functioning community center including but not limited to: ways to help abate issues of homelessness, can help in filing non-profit status, would like to speak a council meeting, organize artwork, curate an artshow, work with a theater, organize performing art events, would like to teach a community class, can work with kids caught doing grafitti and would like teach constructive ways to express oneself, if you have any experience in xeriscaping and ways to use recycled materials to reduce water damage, any experience in native plants, creating proposals, any experience in analyzing low-cost or cost-free ways of addressing structural issues, work with or know someone who works with the city and or any other government establishment and can help address any issues that might arise, grantwriting, finding ecological ethical coroporate/private sponsorship, work with schools and students and any other ideas and ways we can come together as a community to make this happen.
Once again, thank you all for being a part of this, special thanks to the volunteers who planted the plants and to the organizations and individuals that donated plants and the media for creating awareness and to all of you have helped and encouraged us. In the spirit of my favorite holiday, I'm thankful for my community who came together to help us all live a much more beautiful world.
Cannot Thank You Enough,
Elliot
