Environmental Stewardship

With gratitude, La Selva Beach Community Church and its members are proactively looking for ways to help preserve this beautiful planet that God has entrusted us with.

Here are just a few of the ways we’re trying to make a positive impact.

Graffiti Removal

Our church is now a member of the Graffiti Removal Project, a joint effort of the Volunteer Center and Santa Cruz County. We attack and paint over graffiti in the Aptos/La Selva Beach areas. Minimum age for this project is 12 years and we have found the hardest workers are our youth. Projects are identified by the Volunteer Center leader about once a month; they provide all the paint/rollers/etc. and ask us to work up to a maximum of two hours. If you are interested in participating, contact the church office.

  

Adopt A-Highway Program

For five years our church participated in Caltrans Adopt-A-Highway program by maintaining the area on Highway 1 just south of Mar Monte known as La Selva Vista Point. This is an area frequented by travelers who want a great view of the Monterey Bay as well as those who just want to pull over and rest. As Adopt-A-Highway volunteers, we cleaned this area twice a month. Cleaning involved emptying the seven trash containers, providing new liners in each of the cans and picking up litter found in the area. The trash from the containers along with the filled litter bags were then left at the site to be picked up by Caltrans.

After five years we elected withdraw for the Adopt-A-Highway Program to see if we could find a Community Service activity where we could involve the church youth. Caltrans only allowed youth 16 and over to participate in the Adopt-A-Highway Program. We are now volunteers in Santa Cruz County’s Graffiti Removal Project.

Recycling Policy

We make every effort to use washable, recyclable and/or biodegradable dishware at Church coffee-hours and social events. We believe it is important to be responsible role models for our children and the community.

Community Garden

There is a growing interest among church and community members in creating an organic community vegetable garden. Helping people find support for growing their own produce locally is not only healthy for our bodies and souls, it’s healthy for the environment. This is a grass roots effort which needs our support. Interested? We want to hear from you!