West Long Beach youth make art to show they care about the environment
A local nonprofit promoting health and nutrition held an art contest and environmental fair at Cabrillo High School.
With its proximity to a busy freeway and the twin San Pedro ports, West Long Beach has long experienced environmental degradation, but some local students are reminding people they don’t have to be part of the problem.
More than 30 young people created art posters for a contest, and the winners were celebrated Friday during an environmental fair at Cabrillo High School. Julie Lie of Associated Mothers in Action helped organize the event, which was funded by a grant from the Youth Climate Action Fund.
“This is where there’s a lot of compromised environmental quality,” so it made sense to help students raise awareness in West Long Beach, Lie said. “We just want to engage them; we feel strongly that this community needs to have opportunities to engage.”
LaTiana Tatum, a student at Renaissance High School for the Arts, focused her art piece on three themes: clean water, healthy eating and recycling. When people don’t properly dispose of trash, it may end up in the ocean where it can kill animals, Tatum said.
One of her goals is to set a good example: “recycle my trash and keep where I am clean so that … maybe other people will see what I'm doing and do the same thing,” she said.
Jamila Shuford, a ninth grader at Cabrillo, was similarly inspired to use art to combat trash in her community.
“I live by oil refineries and I see how it’s polluting our Earth and I see how people litter so carelessly, and I just wanted to make a message saying it's not OK to litter,” she said.
“This is the Earth, this is your home, so why trash it up?”
Mikayla Thiesen, a student teacher at Cabrillo, said she worries about how climate change is worsening extreme weather such as hurricanes, and that’s already affecting some people’s day-to-day lives.
She gave up eating meat in high school and hopes other people might take the same step.
“I’m definitely not like a perfect vegetarian but I think doing what you can to make plant-based choices or shopping locally, things like that are important and more approachable versus trying to solve these huge issues,” Thiesen said. “I think the little things matter too.”
The fair also featured people from city and county departments that deal with water and waste and the Conservation Corps of Long Beach, and visitors could enjoy vegetarian and vegan snacks or fill a bag with rescued produce including citrus fruits, eggplants and more.
Lie said young people may feel like they can’t do anything about environmental problems, so the art contest and fair were intended to help them understand there are steps they and their families can take to reduce their impact on the environment, such as eating less meat.
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