Ballona Creek Renaissance Hosts Sony Pictures Volunteer Day

Ballona Creek Renaissance hosted over 100 Employees this past Sun. April 27 at two separate venues, as part of the entertainment company’s annual volunteer day.

Thirty Sony workers headed to ’s Creekside Native Plant Learning Garden, while the remaining 70-plus employees headed downstream to Centinela Avenue to do a post-rain creek cleanup.

At the native plant garden, BCR's Jim Lamm, Amy Rosenstein, and Irene Reingold helped the Sony volunteers remove a large volume of unwanted invasive plants, and then planted an additional 32 native grasses and flowering shrubs.

The Sony group, which included Janice Pober, Lani Monos, Michelle Minyon, and Carol Reynolds, "not only did a very good and complete job, but they had a lot of fun doing it!,” BCR founder Jim Lamm said.

Meanwhile downstream, BCR's Sandrine Cassidy Schmitt, David Valdez and Michele Bigelow oversaw the volunteer creek cleanup at the place where the inland water meets the ocean water.

Following a few short talks about safety, watershed and birds, the volunteers collected many bagfuls of trash that had been flushed into the creek by rain two days earlier. Among the long list of "collectables" they retrieved were a lunch box, a full bottle of bleach, baseball, bike and motorcycle helmets, and a $50 bill!

The next open-to-all Ballona Creek Cleanup at Centinela Avenue will be held on Sat. May 19 from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. The event will be postponed to May 26 if it rains. For waivers and details, please visit www.ballonacreek.org.