Girl Scouts Tackle Storm Drain Sites in Salinas to Save the Ocean

The Alisal Program Center (APC) is an after school program, open Monday through Friday for girls ages 5 to 17 and is supported by our generous community partners. The APC is open to all girls in the Salinas area and offers a wide variety of experiences, including weekly Girl Scout troop meetings, homework assistance, STEM-based learning and community service are just a few of the exciting things girls do here

Thanks in part to a generous grant from the Harden Foundation, 25 girls at the center have been learning about water sheds and water conservation as part of their STEM-based learning activities at the Center. They have taken this knowledge and put it into practice through a massive effort to paint every single storm drain in their community! Every other week, the girls go around their community to help clean and add fresh paint to neighborhood storm drains, which are designed to drain excess rain and ground water from surfaces such as paved streets and car parks.

Salinas Troop 9111 Closter Park

Unlike water that goes down the drain to the sewer, water that flows into storm drains is not treated and filtered for pollutants. This contaminated water flows into canals, streams and lakes, then ends up in the ocean, affecting sea creatures and their habitat. The girls were shown the ropes, with a little initial instructional help from Ray Villanueva, a retired city employee, on how to clean the storm drains and paint them with an English and Spanish stencil reading, “Flows to Sanborn Creek - Keep It Clean.” By putting in time, energy and goodwill, Girl Scouts from Salinas are changing the world, one storm drain at a time, applying what they have learned through the important educational opportunities provided by grants like this, from the Harden Foundation.

The Harden Foundation was established in 1963 by Ercia and Gene Harden. Their hard work and good fortune in agriculture in the Salinas Valley produced the legacy that has, through their foresight and generosity, become today's Harden Foundation. The Harden Foundation is committed to funding to a variety of qualified nonprofit organizations in Monterey County and hopes to continue to develop other resources that will benefit and aid them in their missions to serve local communities.