"Earth Environment Day" - Clean Up the Beach and Protect the Ecology

Judy Lee, Joey Zhou, Angelina Simionescu, and Dr. Debby Jou at "Earth Environment Day" at Huntington Beach

Huntington Beach, California, USA. 17th July, 2021. The Hope Center, Qizhi Education, Hope Lions Club and the Las Vegas Diamond Lions Club jointly organized an "Earth Environment Day" to clean up the beach at Huntington Beach and protect the environment. Once the rubbish enters the sea, it can be very harmful to the fish and wildlife. Since 2000, Dr. Debby Jou has organized volunteers to pick up trash at the beach, and initiated a series of activities to establish "Earth Environment Day". As the founder of Hope Center, Hope Lions Club and Las Vegas Diamond Lions Club, Dr. Debby Jou actively plans activities, recruits volunteers, rents vehicles, food, and works together with the Lions for charitable causes. By the end of 2020, Dr. Debby Jou had organized a total of 117 beach clean ups and recruited thousands of volunteers to participate.

When the participants arrived at 10:00am, they put on their yellow Lions Club vests, took photos, did interviews, and then set off to the beach with garbage bags. Among the items they found were discarded plastic bottles, plastic bags, packaging foam, rope, gloves, cigarette butts, rubber tires, and layers of trash in the planted areas around the beach. This year the participants included Dr. Debby Jou and Chairman Li Qingyu, Vice Chairman Lili Kwok, Shen Jing, Cindy Wu, Joe Chou, Ada Ng, Ann Chou, Audrey Chou, Joseph H, Edwared D., Robert Chen, Daniel Chen, Gordon Shen Zhou, Reagan Shen Zhou, Zeling Zhao, Mei Chen, Yu Fun, Angelina S., Alexander S., Anthony S., Author S., Andrew Lin and over 50 volunteers of all ages. Joey Zhou interviewed Judy Lee (Las Vegas Diamond Lions Club) and Angelina Simionescu (Hope Lions Club) about the event.

Volunteers in yellow vests clean up the beach near the water to prevent trash from going into the ocean.

A couple of volunteers show their tongs for picking up the trash and a trash bag that was almost full of trash.

During the process of cleaning up the trash on the beach, some of the beach visitors would talk to the volunteers and thank them for their work, while others would just smile. There were many families enjoying the beach who were educating their children about not throwing trash on the beach. But perhaps, the most gratifying thing that happened was that many visitors who were inspired by the volunteers actually joined in to help clean up the beach.

Volunteers of all ages joined in to clean up the beach at Huntington Beach.

Joey Zhou and Dr. Debby Jou

Joey Zhou and Angelina Simionescu