I Love A Clean San Diego (ILACSD), a recipient of a 2017 Keep America Beautiful/Lowe’s Community Partners Grant, used its grant to conserve, protect and enhance areas in Lemon Grove and Encanto by supporting beautification and cleanup events in those communities.

As a result of the grant program, on Sept. 16, ILACSD was able to expand two of its smaller Coastal Cleanup Day sites into large scale cleanups with additional projects to improve the parks!

Beautification efforts were focused on Encanto Park and Lemon Grove Park. Between the two sites, over 130 volunteers removed 129 pounds of trash and 57 pounds of recyclables from the areas. In addition to the debris removed, volunteers accomplished impressive feats by removing brush, weeding landscape, planting 90 native plants, spreading mulch, painting nine structures, and removing graffiti.

On Oct, 21, ILACSD hosted a third event in Lemon Grove’s Civic Center Park. With a turnout of over 120 individuals, volunteers joined forces to remove litter – collecting 128 pounds of trash and 28 pounds of recyclables, as well as some household hazardous waste like batteries and syringes. In addition to the cleanup, volunteers collected an unprecedented amount of cigarette litter from landscaped areas, spread new mulch over approximately 200 square feet of landscape, planted 95 various plants in that space, and painted the exterior of a nearby public restroom. Overall, ILACSD’s volunteers drastically improved the area surrounding the Lemon Grove Depot station, a landmark of Lemon Grove, and removed over 150 pounds of debris from entering the stormwater system and flowing to the Pacific Ocean!

The final event in Lemon Grove took place on Saturday, Nov. 4. This cleanup featured one final beautification project for Lemon Grove’s Berry Street Park. On this day, 96 volunteers removed 100 pounds of trash and 15 pounds of recyclables from the park and installed fibar mulch covering both of the playground areas. Check out the Lemon Grove Cleanup Facebook Gallery here.

“We are incredibly proud of all of our hardworking volunteers who helped make these transformations possible!” said Becca Kuntz, marketing coordinator of ILACSD. “Thank you to Lowe’s and Keep America Beautiful for helping us show love to Lemon Grove and #DoBeautifulThings!”