By Lookout Staff

April 5, 2013 -- Santa Monica residents will have a chance to celebrate Earth Day all week long by helping keep the city clean.

Heal the Bay, Santa Monica College and the Lincoln Boulevard Task Force are all asking residents to volunteer their time to clean up Santa Monica's streets and beaches.

“Celebrate Earth Day by cleaning the beach and collect a reward for your efforts: FREE admission to Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium,” Heal the Bay officials said.

Volunteers for the Heal the Bay cleanup can participate either on April 20 or on April 21, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Or, both, if you are feeling ambitious.

The cleanup is just part of a weekend festival at the Santa Monica Pier to celebrate Earth Day. A complete listing of scheduled presentations can be found at http://www.healthebay.org

“The marine science center plans include scavenger hunts, a photo booth, face painting and craft stations set up to create take-home fish pendants and flowerpots,” officials said.

For those who want to help keep Santa Monica's streets clean, the Lincoln Boulevard Task Force will host the first-annual Lincoln Boulevard cleanup on Saturday April 20.

“As we are all painfully aware, Lincoln needs a Spring cleaning – perhaps a first ever event to engage the entire community to address the weeds and trash that were one of the top three issues according to the recent resident survey results presented by the Task Force,” Task Force representatives said.

Volunteers can sign up by sending an email to killeenpilon@hotmail.com and are asked to bring their “own brooms, work gloves, clippers and trowels to pick up litter and other debris and pull weeds along the sidewalks and grass strips of Lincoln from the 10 Freeway south to the Venice border at Ozone,” representatives said.

Santa Monica College will keep the events going through the week, culminating with a beach cleanup on Friday, April 26.

Volunteers from the SMC community will descend upon the beach around lifeguard station 18 and will clean from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The cleanup will be followed by snacks and a discussion, officials said.

On Earth Day, April 22, from 3 to 5 p.m. SMC will celebrate honey bees with exhibits in the Organic Learning Garden on the Main Campus demonstrating, “how honey bee farmers are helping bees and people by harvesting local, organic honey,” officials said.

Later, SMC will screen “Queen of the Sun,” a documentary about the disappearance of bees.

SMC's Center for Environmental & Urban Studies will host an open house on Wednesday April 24 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Visitors will be given “tours of the college’s most sustainable facility that will show its energy-efficiency measures, green building materials, and the steps SMC is taking to be more sustainable,” officials said.

On Thursday, April 25, the SMC EcoAction Club will host “the 'SMC Free Store,' a campuswide exchange of items, including clothing, electronics, kitchenware, tools, small furniture, bikes, office supplies and much more” in the Main Campus Quad, officials said.

For information on Earth Week events, visit www.smc.edu/earthweek or call (310) 434-3909.