Thank You Thursday – 2.7.13

What better time to thank the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald, than Valentine week. Find a recording of Ella singing “My Funny Valentine,” you’ll soon discover what we mean….

But we love Ella for more than just her three-octave range. We also love Ella because a few years before she passed away in 1996, she formed the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation to help create educational opportunities for children.

Her foundation recently funded resources for our “Lunch ‘n Learn” field trip program (pictured left) to help foster a love of the ocean in students from regional schools. Each year, Heal the Bay provides marine education through Lunch ‘n Learn to 500 underserved Title 1 students, bussing them to Duke’s Malibu for a day of beach exploration and learning games.

Although we live in Southern California, winter mornings at the shore can still be chilly. We’d like to thank Venice Ale House owner Tom Elliot for serving free hot coffee to our Nothin’ But Sand volunteers who’d gathered in January to clean up Venice Beach.( Some of us at Heal the Bay also appreciate the spirit-warming benefits of Venice Ale House’s selection of craft beers… one pint at a time!)

White sharks off our California coast are safer now, thanks to your advocacy efforts. We are grateful to all of you who signed and shared our petition supporting the listing of the Northeastern Pacific population of white sharks as endangered or threatened. Yesterday, the Fish and Game Commission unanimously voted this population of white shark to candidacy under the CA Endangered Species Act. This is an exciting decision! Thank you for your support!

Learn more about our science-based educational efforts. Lunch’ n Learn is just the beginning!

Warm your heart and come to our next Nothin But Sand beach cleanup on Saturday, February 16, 10 a.m.-Noon at Will Rogers State Beach.