National Public Lands Day - Toyota Sponsors Seal Beach NWR/Naval Weapons Site

Jessica and I arrived at The Friends of Seal Beach main building at around 7am. Toyota and Friends of Seal Beach volunteers had already been on hand to set up breakfast, chairs, and all the other logisitics. It was an impressive site to see how well organized this already was.

We waiting momentarily but before we knew it Toyota volunteers started arriving by the BUSLOAD. As they got off the bus, they were treated to an early morning breakfast to help them prepare for the upcoming task of shoveling and hoeing out invasive seagrass and then planting native wetland vegatation in its place.

Once all the buses arrived with the volunteers and everybody had a bite to eat, Friends of Seal Beach coordinators led a brief overview of how important Toyota has been to this particular site illustrating this point by showing off the 'native plant garden' that was started here by a National Public Lands Day/Toyota volunteer project a few years ago. Many migratory birds come back to this area every year and many 'critters' make it home year round.

The mostly Toyota crowd was plesently suprised when Jim Press, President & COO of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. was on hand to personally deliver a $3,000 grant to Friends of Seal Beach NWR. Mr. Press lent a hand to our public hand big time by not only presenting a huge monetary contribution to the site, but also really getting his hands dirty by planting some native bushes later on.

The volunteers then departed to their assigned duties where over 450 native plants were planted and hundreds of pounds of invasive seagrass was pulled out. While out with shovel in hand, I could sense that everybody was having some good fun, getting a sense of accomplishment, and bonding with their coworkers and friends. I, for one, had a great time ripping seagrass out as my wife bagged it!

The event culminated by a great box lunch and a brief "thank you" to the volunteers from The Director of The National Public Lands Day Program...me. Mr. Press stated it best while in The Public Lands Day Prius when he stated, "National Public Lands Day is a great day for volunteering! We'll see YOU next year at National Public Lands Day 2006!"