SAN FERNANDO (CNS) - With the big game just weeks away, the NFL and local officials will team up on a series of tree-planting, gardening and forest- restoration projects beginning today for Super Bowl Green Week.
The week's events will begin Saturday morning with a tree-planting project along Huntington Street in San Fernando. Volunteers organized with TreePeople will plant 30 evergreen trees along the street, and the organization will maintain them for at least three years to ensure they become ``well- established'' following their planting.
On Monday, NFL Green and the Los Angeles Super Bowl Host Committee will work with various community groups and experts from the Bay Foundation and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium on a kelp forest restoration project off Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro. Teams of divers will remove thousands of purple sea urchins that have devastated kelp in the area, and develop ``kelp restoration pods'' covering an area roughly the size of a football field.
That effort will also include a beach cleanup and educational presentations for students at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium.
On Jan. 27, a distribution event will be held to provide school supplies and sports equipment collected at YMCA branches across the area to schools and community organizations serving children in under-served neighborhoods. During the event, Verizon will present a $12,500 grant to the Social Justice Learning Institute to fund programs aimed at improving youth education and health in communities of color.
Green Week activities will wrap up on Jan. 29, with a cleaning and beautification effort at Queen Park Community Garden in Inglewood. According to organizers, volunteers will replace soil and plant 20 raised garden beds at the park, while also planting trees, painting and performing general cleanup work.
In recent months, NFL Green has worked on other environmental projects in the area, including the planting of 56 trees -- recognizing Super Bowl LVI -- at Edward Vincent Junior Park in Inglewood, planting trees and a vertical wall garden at CultivaLA's Westlake Community Garden, refurbishing Mott Street Community Garden in Boyle Heights, planting trees along Jefferson Boulevard in South Los Angeles and in Watts, and planting a large California Oak ``Wishing Tree'' at Wishing Tree Park in Carson.