201810.20
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Save Our Beach hosts 20th anniversary cleanup in Seal Beach

by in News

  • Volunteers at the Save Our Beach event comb the beach for trash in Seal Beach on Saturday, October 20, 2018. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

  • Maryjane Kinsey of Whittier pulls out trash from between the rocks of the breakwater during the Save Our Beach clean-up effort in Seal Beach on Saturday, October 20, 2018. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

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  • Some of the trash that was cleaned up off the beach in Seal Beach during the Save Our Beach event on Saturday, October 20, 2018. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

  • Volunteers head back to empty their bags of trash they picked up on the beach in Seal Beach during the Save for Beach event on Saturday, October 20, 2018. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

  • Jennifer Grombone of Los Alamitos gets her feet wet as she fishes trash out of the water at the Save Our Beach clean up event in Seal Beach on Saturday, October 20, 2018. It is the 20th anniversary of the Save Our Beach clean-up effort. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

  • Volunteers grab a bag before heading out to the beach to pick up trash at the Save Our Beach clean-up event in Seal Beach on Saturday, October 20, 2018. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

  • Kids from the Vietnamese Boy Scout Troop 963 in Huntington Beach help fold gloves that will be used for volunteers at the Save Our Beach clean-up event in Seal Beach on Saturday, October 20, 2018. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

  • Adrian Guzman of Covina stuffs more trash into a bag that he and his friend CJ Ruiz cleaned up off the beach in Seal Beach during the Save Our Beach event on Saturday, October 20, 2018. Some of the items included shoes and a life vest. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

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They came out in force with one common goal: To clean up the coast.

A long stretch of dry weather – followed by a quick storm that rolled through last weekend – resulted in plenty of work to be done by the volunteers who helped pick up trash and debris in Seal Beach.

But this wasn’t just any cleanup, it was a special day for the nonprofit Save Our Beach, which celebrated 20 years since it was started by Steve and Kim Masoner in 1998.

Since then, an estimated 150,000 volunteers have given a helping hand, logging 340,000 volunteer hours and collecting more than 380 tons of trash. The mouth of the San Gabriel River funnels runoff from 52 inland cities straight into the ocean that borders Seal Beach and Long Beach.

Though Kim Masoner died in 2015, her legacy lives on through the work done by the hundreds of volunteers who show up each month.

Volunteers range from scouts to students looking to get class credit, company team-building groups and parents taking their children out for a learning lesson about how trash impacts the ocean.