The EcoGala honors the environment and our donors by being exclusively online, and providing all the exciting activities you would experience at an event such as an auction featuring celebrity collectibles, gift bags, tribute journals, sponsorship opportunities, participant prizes, and so much more.   

Visit Santa Monica Baykeeper's Main Site

Santa Monica Baykeeper Mission Statement

Founded in 1993, the Santa Monica Baykeeper's mission is to protect and restore the Santa Monica Bay, San Pedro Bay and adjacent waters through enforcement, fieldwork, and community action. We work to achieve this goal through litigation and regulatory programs that ensure water quality protections in waterways throughout L.A. County

Kelp Restoration and Monitoring Project
The Santa Monica Baykeeper established the Kelp Restoration and Monitoring Project to restore the giant kelp beds in Santa Monica Bay. During the last one-hundred years, close to 90% of the giant kelp canopies off southern California’s coast disappeared.

Similar to tropical coral reefs, giant kelp forests support a wide array of life and are one of the most biodiverse communities known to exist in our world’s oceans. One-fourth of California marine organisms depend on the kelp forests for some part of their life journey, including the threatened bocaccio, giant black sea bass, and the few remaining sea otters.

The Kelp Project relies on volunteer divers from local communities, who assist in research, monitoring and restoration of historic kelp beds off of Malibu and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Since the project’s inception in 1996, thousands of hours have been donated by volunteer divers. The direct results of these efforts are the restoration of thousands of square meters of kelp forest, a better understanding of the status of the nearshore habitat of Santa Monica Bay and the first steps towards the widespread recovery of our coastal kelp forest.

Stream Restoration and Monitoring
Santa Monica Baykeeper monitors pollution problems from inland communities in streams, rivers, wetlands, and estuaries. We have an active volunteer corps comprised of more than 150 active volunteers at any given time. These volunteers are trained to help collect water quality data to identify areas that are contributing pollution to streams, wetlands, and ultimately the ocean.

In addition, Baykeeper volunteers actively work to fix problems identified by our monitoring activities. Volunteers participate in monthly restoration activities such as removing invasive plants and planting appropriate native plants to minimize erosion and water pollution, and improve natural habitat for wildlife.  Baykeeper volunteers also work monthly to remove litter and trash from Lincoln Boulevard, one of the busiest streets in southern California. Trash and litter is removed from the street before it enters are waterways. Baykeeper and our volunteer army conduct special restoration projects such as retiring abandoned roads that pollute our waters by causing erosion and extra runoff to enter local waterways.

Wetland Restoration and Monitoring
Santa Monica Baykeeper is under contract with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains to help manage the Malibu Lagoon Restoration Project. We help secure permits, manage contractors, and supervise construction and monitoring activities, to ensure that the sensitive natural resources are protected and the restoration project meets the goals of improved habitat and water quality. Phase 1 of the Lagoon Restoration, the construction of a Low Impact Development (LID) green parking lot has already been completed.

The parking lot will capture and treat stormwater from a 3.2 inch 24-hour storm using natural treatment that requires almost no maintenance. The entire parking lot is landscaped with native California vegetation and all the materials used to construct the parking lot were manufactured within 150 miles of the site. The most impressive part of the new parking lot is that it offers more parking and is over 1-acre smaller than the original asphalt parking lot. Baykeeper staff is on-site during construction activities and working with resource management agencies and State Parks (the property owner)

Public Outreach & Education
Our public outreach and watershed education programs inform citizens about the connection between human activities and the health of our local waterways.
Santa Monica Baykeeper believes that protecting the quality of our natural resources is the responsibility of every citizen. Therefore, we offer a wide range of programs that educate and involve community members in the restoration of our coastal resources. Santa Monica Baykeeper staff conducts and publishes scientific research, conduct restoration and monitoring trainings and seminars, and share our expertise at many professional conferences every year.

Advocacy
Enforcement is a cornerstone of environmental protection and without it the goal of clean coastal waters will never be reached. For this reason, the Santa Monica Baykeeper regularly engages in legal actions to ensure that our nation's water quality laws are not ignored, whether by the polluters themselves or by those agencies charged with protecting our rivers and beaches.

The Baykeeper has successfully developed cases for prosecution by the California Department of Health Services, Environmental Crimes Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Coast Guard, the USEPA, and other agencies. But limited government resources mean that there are some polluters that only the Baykeeper is willing to pursue. In these cases, Baykeeper fills the void by filing law suits to hold polluters accountable for their actions.  

Baykeeper staff regularly reviews and analyzes development projects, local, regional, State, and Federal policies that will impact water quality and/or natural habitat. We provide comment and testimony to improve and change these projects to better protect our Coastal resources.

A Message from the Director of Development and Marketing
AKA the PARTY PLANNER:

Thank you for your interest in participating in our first annual year-long EcoGala.  Commit to being part of this exciting time of positive change, to get creative, to re-invent, to fight the good fight, and to act now!

We are faced with new challenges and in a time of economic hardship I made a decision to be creative with Santa Monica Baykeeper’s fundraising efforts.  The EcoGala is an attempt to prove many wrong – prove that you don’t have to spend lots of money to make money.  That as an environmental group we owe it to our donors and the planet to generate funds without taxing the earth.

Santa Monica Baykeeper is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the Santa Monica Bay, San Pedro Bay and adjacent waters through enforcement, fieldwork and community action.

To support the crucial work we are doing, we are hosting a truly green fundraising event by having our entire event online! By doing so, we are minimizing our event’s ecological footprint and promoting creative ways to support our organization.

Laurie Feldman - Director of Development and Marketing

To meet the rest of our team and learn about Santa Monica Baykeeper CLICK HERE

Laurie Feldman comes to Santa Monica Baykeeper with over 20 years of fundraising experience and 10 years of leadership experience within the non-profit sector. Prior to joining Santa Monica Baykeeper, Laurie spent two years with Heal the Bay. Laurie has a broad background of academic training, professional experiences, and volunteer accomplishments that make her an effective environmental fundraiser.

From her years in non-profit management, Laurie clearly understands the importance of a broad range of individual, corporate and community support for non-profit organizations, and has a strong vision of how to secure and integrate such support. Additionally, Laurie has experience working with corporations and high-level executives and has built strong relationships with the young corporate and community leaders of Southern California. Laurie has a BA from UCLA and a Master of Clinical Psychology.

Click Here to view an article about Laurie & The EcoGala called "Who's Doing Good?"