Beaches don’t clean themselves as community activist Justin Rudd knows better than anyone else.
For the last 20 years, on the third Saturday of every month—rain or shine—Rudd and some hundred volunteers have suited-up with plastic gloves and bags to pick up trash along a stretch of beach starting at Granada Ave.
This Saturday, June 15, marks the 20th anniversary of Rudd’s 30-minute Beach Cleanup. To celebrate, he and his nonprofit Community Action Team (CAT) will be hosting their usual 10 a.m. cleanup on the Granada Launch Ramp, but with a birthday cake and raffle prizes.
“I look back and it feels like time has sped by,” Rudd said. “When I started it, I wasn’t thinking where will this be in 20 years. I don’t even know that I was thinking that it would last a year.”
As with many grassroots movements, the inspiration for Rudd’s cleanup began with an irking observation: There was way too much trash on the beach. While hosting one of his regular beach-side fitness boot camps back in 1999, Rudd asked his class one afternoon to take 30 minutes after their workout to help pick up some of the debris.
“I would say, ‘Guys look, we are running here, we’re working out right here, let’s clean this up,’ ” Rudd said. “I just knew that I was tired of seeing trash on the beach and tired of hearing other people say the city should do something about it.”
At first, Rudd relied on word of mouth to gather volunteers for the event, asking friends to bring their friends and so forth. Once the cleanup gained more traction, Rudd would send out emails to hundreds of individuals, asking for their participation each month, something still does today.
Since the cleanup’s inception, thousands of volunteers, including children, have mobilized to help and together they’ve removed thousands of bags of litter from the sandy shore. In that time, Rudd and volunteers have seen some bizarre discards, most of which have washed up from the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers.
“Someone in our clean up found a dead chicken and a goat’s head,” he recalled. “We’ve found shopping carts from Target in the water, a red fire extinguisher, tires, footballs and basketballs.”
Rudd has worked to keep the cleanup as open and accessible as possible by keeping the event short—just 30 minutes long—and open to all ages. And providing free parking, volunteer credit and refreshments (usually lemonade and chocolate chip cookies donated by local businesses) have helped ensure the path of least, litter pickup resistance.
Despite 20 years of successful cleanup events with dozens of faithful regulars, Rudd says he still works to find ways to entice new faces to volunteer. Hosting light-hearted competitions that begin shortly after each pickup session, he says, is one way.
This month, Rudd is hosting a singing competition, in which participants will sing a few lines from the national anthem. He and several of the Miss Long Beach title holders will vote on a winner who will be awarded a $1,000 contract to sing the anthem at all other of his CAT events through next June.
“This will bring some people who wouldn’t regularly have ever thought of coming to the beach cleanup,” he said. “But now these singers are going to come, so it’s a different audience.”
Since moving to Long Beach 22 years ago, the Belmont Heights denizen has been involved in nearly every community event the city looks most forward to, like the Bulldog Beauty Contest and the Turkey Trot. But despite all the parties, events, and competitions Rudd has brought to life, his 30-minute beach cleanup is the one he looks forward to most fondly.
“I like helping people. I think when people come and volunteer they discover how good and satisfying it is to help,” he said. “People feel good and they come back.”
The 20th-anniversary clean-up takes place Saturday, June 15th at 1 Granada Ave, you can RSVP here, although it’s not mandatory. Plastic gloves and bags will be provided. While street parking is usually available, those using the kiosk parking can use code JR0615 for waive the fee.
Students who want to earn an hour of volunteer credit are invited to come to the event early, at 9:30 a.m, and help Rudd set up. Those interested in confirming their volunteer work must bring their school’s appropriate paperwork.