Press Release Samples

1. New Visions Foundation

MEDIA ALERT

Detention Camp Teens Recite Their Poetry, Perform Rap for Summer Fest
Youths Also Get Visit from Karma Rescue Dogs

CALABASAS—Teens incarcerated at Camp Gonzalez, a juvenile detention facility, will recite poetry about their lives, perform raps they have written and exhibit their artwork as part of Summer of Success, a day-long festival designed to help students see education in a positive light.

Camp Gonzalez teens will also get a visit from Karma Rescue and its rescue dogs during the festival, which includes sports and entertainment. The event is put on by Camp Community Partners (CCP), a New Visions Foundation program to help teens transition back into the community through after-school classes intended to make their camp experience more productive, meaningful and thus successful. The teens recently created their F.L.O.W. (F.luent L.ove o.f W.ords) poems, rap music and art for the festival through the program.

“Studies show that crime and violence peak in the summer months,” says New Visions Foundation program director Fernando Montes-Rodriguez. “We put on Summer of Success to give these youths something constructive and meaningful to do and to keep them motivated. The idea is to minimize their chances of getting into trouble while they are incarcerated and afterward.”

WHAT: Summer of Success festival at Camp Gonzalez, a juvenile detention facility of the L.A. County Probation Dept.
DATE: Saturday, July 11 (Not open to the public)
TIME: Noon to 3 p.m.
WHERE: Camp Gonzalez, 1301 N. Las Virgenes Road, Calabasas, 91302

AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS AND PHOTOGRAPHY:
Incarcerated Teens
New Visions Foundation Program Director Fernando Montes-Rodriguez
New Visions Foundation Reentry Counselor Harry “HG” Grammer

WHO: Camp Community Partners (CCP) is a year-round program of Santa Monica’s nonprofit New Visions Foundation, conducted in partnership with the L.A. County Probation Dept. CCP runs after-school educational enrichment classes, from GED readiness to computer skills to poetry. The goal is to help incarcerated youths successfully transition out of detention camp and into the community by showing them positive life alternatives. Some 25 CCP youths are slated to attend community college in fall 2009.

RSVP: Zan Dubin Scott, zan@zdscommunications.com, (310) 383-0956.

Camp Community Partners in La Opinion

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2. JUNKride 2009

Environmentalists Ride to Raise Awareness of  “Plastic Soup”
“JUNKride” Spotlights Environmental, Health Impact of Plastic Marine Debris

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Zan Dubin Scott: (310) 383-0956

SANTA MONICA—Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins, who have brought world attention to the  “plastic soup” fouling our oceans, on April 4 will embark on a 2,000-mile bicycle ride/speaking tour from Vancouver to Tijuana in a quest to end the age of disposable plastics.

Eriksen, director of research and education with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF), and Cummins, AMRF’s education advisor, will pedal to 15 cities in 10 weeks for JUNKride 2009. Delivering dozens of presentations to educators, policymakers and the public, they’ll show wrenching photographs from a decade of research at sea: a dead turtle trapped in a plastic lawn chair, an albatross carcass bulging with tooth brushes and bottle tops, the plastic stomach-contents of fish commonly served in restaurants.

“In ten years, the amount of trash floating out to sea has doubled,” Eriksen says. “We’ve got to find a better way soon. We’re already finding plastic waste in the food we eat.”

The Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a Long Beach-based nonprofit organization, was founded by Captain Charles Moore, who first put the plastic soup problem on the map and spoke at this year’s TED Conference.

“Moore’s work made it clear that plastic pollution is having a major impact on our marine environment,” says world renowned biologist Daniel Pauly, former director of the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia. “I commend Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins for raising broader awareness of this grave problem with JUNKride.”

Santa Monica residents, the couple will launch JUNKride 2009 at the Vancouver Aquarium, then head south for lectures on the environmental and human health impacts of plastic marine pollution. They’ll stop at universities, schools, other aquariums and the like in Seattle, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego and other big cities. Their Los Angeles lecture, a collaboration with Surfrider Foundation, is slated for June 19.

AMRF has focused its research on the North Pacific Gyre, a swirling vortex of ocean currents twice the size of the United States, in which a vast plastic buildup, or soup, is rapidly growing.

“We haven’t seen the worst of it and have yet to fully delineate the area,” says Moore. “This summer’s research voyage seeks to validate models that show the highest levels of marine debris are northwest of Hawaii near the International Date Line.”

Eriksen, a Gulf War vet, sailed through the gyre from Long Beach to Hawaii last summer aboard Algalita’s JUNKraft made of 15,000 plastic bottles. For JUNKride, he and Cummins will hand out 100 jars of debris-filled ocean water collected on the trip.

Says Cummins: “We hope to educate a new generation by going to schools and encouraging students to

think about where exactly “away is” in our throwaway society. We must start seeing the link between consumerism and long-term environmental impact.”

Scientists estimate that nearly half of all seabird and many marine mammal species are impacted by plastic waste, either from ingestion, entanglement or strangulation. The human health risk of the plastic ocean plague is growing.  Aboard JUNKraft, Eriksen collected rainbow runner fish, commonly served in restaurants, and found plastic particles in their stomachs.

“Plastics at sea are possible carriers for chemicals like DDT, PCBs and other pollutants, such as oil from our cars,” Eriksen says. “These are known human carcinogens and endocrine disrupters. Our research is examining whether they are released into fish that ingest plastic and wind up on our dinner plates.”

In fact, Cummins is testing her blood for the dangerous chemicals to determine if a correlation can be made between meal time and maritime plastics. This will be documented for “Synthetic Me,” a new outreach project.

Eriksen and Cummins say there is no way to clean up the North Pacific Gyre’s plastic soup. So, their manifesto is “do no more harm.” All along their route, they will work with legislators, educators and conservation organizations to promote ways to keep disposable plastics out of the ocean. They will urge everyone they meet to use stainless steel water bottles instead of single-use plastic containers and carry groceries in canvas, not plastic bags.

“It makes no sense that we take a material designed to last forever, then turn around and make products from it that are designed to be thrown away,” Eriksen says. “That’s the opposite of sustainable living.”

Global warming activist Laurie David also commends JUNKride. “Individuals can make an enormous difference in the battle against environmental destruction,” says David, a producer of “An Inconvenient Truth.” “Marcus and Anna are doing the work of an army’s worth. I applaud their tireless effort and devotion to the cause.”

JUNKride is a project of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, and sponsored by Ecousable, Horizon Lines, Xtracycle, Kashi, Revolution Fitness, BringYourOwn.org, Color Service Inc., Close the Loop and Patagonia. For the JUNKride lecture schedule and more information: http://junkraft.com/homeJunkRide.html

About Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF): AMRF is a Long Beach-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of the marine environment through research, education and restoration. Our primary work is to establish a baseline data set of the level of plastic debris found in our oceans and inform the public about its existence through public education. Information: (562) 598-4889; http://junkraft.com/homeJunkRide.html or www.algalita.org.

To download photographs of the JUNKride trip to Hawaii: http://www.flickr.com/photos/algalita/. To see “Good Morning America’s” 2008 coverage: ABC/Good Morning America: http://tinyurl.com/dkhjdw.

To download photographs of animals impacted by ocean plastic: http://tinyurl.com/bakzqt

Los Angeles Times blogs about JUNKride

Christian Science Monitor reports on JUNKride

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