FoLAR and TOTL

Last weekend was fantastically packed with community building in our little neighborhood!

Saturday morning we got up early and made our way down to "our" stretch of the Los Angeles River (about a mile away, where we cycle and run pretty often) for the 22nd Annual L.A. River Clean Up organized by Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR). We spent our morning wading through the river, filling up bag after bag of garbage with hundreds of other volunteers. Chad filled up 5 bags and I filled up 6! All told, up and down the river, 25 tons of trash was extracted. 25 tons!! Amazing!

Although it was a little ewwwwww at first to wade around in the muck and rubbage, we both quickly got our hands dirty (well, our gloves) and actually had a pretty fun time. The river is a strangely beautiful place and I hope it has an even greener future thanks to groups like FoLAR who are adamantly committed to revitalizing it.

Later that day was a wonderful event benefiting Children's Hospital Los Angeles - the "Turn on the Lights!" (TOTL) Walk for Kids supporting their brand new hospital building opening in July. I raised $240 for the hospital, which I was pretty darn proud of! Chad joined me on the 3 mile walk from Griffith Park to the hospital itself where there was a massive street party for the attendees with stilt walkers, jugglers, music, food - it was actually pretty jaw dropping. So great to see all the support for CHLA - $732,948 was raised by this walk!



Me and Elsie, CHLA Dog Therapy Program Volunteer. :)





Walking through Griffith Park





Street Party in front of the hospital. MMmmmm... Pinkberry...





Sunset Boulevard



It really feels good to know that your small part contributed to something enormous in scope. It's easy to feel lost in this vast and sprawling city, but this past weekend I truly felt like a vital part of my community. That's a good feeling.