Gary Kosman and Talia Arnold wanted an activity that engaged their children and they stumbled upon an opportunity with the nonprofit group Friends of the Los Angeles River, who fights to protect and improve the 2,000-acre Sepulveda Basin’s ecosystems and biodiversity.
Every fourth Saturday of the month, the family joined other volunteers to remove invasive plants, an effort led by Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), the California Native Plant Society, and the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society.
And with Earth Day earlier this week, the Kosman family is again getting ready to do their part by joining the cleanup on Saturday hosted by FoLAR, the nonprofit that launched the movement that brought the L.A. River back to life.
On April 26, Kosman and the children will join other volunteers for the “Habitat Restoration Day & Earth Month Celebration” in the basin’s 225-acre Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve, hoping to make an impact on the Earth’s healing process by removing trash and invasive plants.
Friends of the LA River held a clean-up on a trail alongside the Los Angeles River on Saturday, April 15, 2023, in Van Nuys. The event was part of the group’s 33rd annual event conducted on two dates and seven sites along the 51-miles of the Los Angeles River. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) Friends of the LA River held a clean-up on a trail alongside the Los Angeles River on Saturday, April 15, 2023, in Van Nuys. Volunteers collect trash along the trail. The event was part of the group’s 33rd annual event conducted on two dates and seven sites along the 51-miles of the Los Angeles River. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) Friends of the LA River held a clean-up on a trail alongside the Los Angeles River on Saturday, April 15, 2023, in Van Nuys. Volunteers collect trash along the trail. The event was part of the group’s 33rd annual event conducted on two dates and seven sites along the 51-miles of the Los Angeles River. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) Show Caption1 of 3Friends of the LA River held a clean-up on a trail alongside the Los Angeles River on Saturday, April 15, 2023, in Van Nuys. The event was part of the group’s 33rd annual event conducted on two dates and seven sites along the 51-miles of the Los Angeles River. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) Expand“It’s very challenging to find family-friendly volunteer opportunities that hosts kids who are very young,” said Kosman, whose children are 9 and 11. “This was an opportunity to get involved in making the community better, and what’s really cool about this opportunity is the kids get immediate visual feedback of, ‘Oh I did that!’ and they can see their efforts lead to making the world a better place.”
On Saturday, 500 volunteers will remove more than 15,000 gallons of non-native species and noxious weeds, restoring an acre of land in the wildlife preserve.
Ben Orbison, FoLAR’s strategic communication director, said, “The cleanup will be in the nature preserve, which is not directly on the river, but the restoration we do is to improve the total health of the watershed.”
The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve is one of the finest urban refuges in the country, serving as a restored natural habitat and a living laboratory, according to the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society.
A longtime FoLAR goal is to restore habitats along the 51-mile river that begins in Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley and flows through downtown L.A. and the Gateway Cities before reaching the Pacific Ocean in Long Beach.
Kosman said that while volunteer cleanup days are great family outings, an unexpected surprise has been that his children have bonded and grown close with older people who are also volunteers.
“They have become mentors for my kids,” Kosman said. “It’s been a really cool unintentional consequence from this one volunteer activity. It’s not just young families out there, but our kids have developed relationships with folks who have a very different perspective and folks they don’t normally interact with.”
If you go:
Registration is required: support.folar.org/event/habitat-restoration-day-and-earth-month-celebration/e664425:
When: Sign up for either an 8:00 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. spot on Saturday, April 26
Where: Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Preserve, 6100 Woodley Ave., Van Nuys. Parking is available.
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