‘Pure evil’ plant life gets the ax at the hands of JCC campers

Friday, August 9, 2002 | by

ALEZA GOLDSMITH

They were armed with shovels and picks to battle the green alien species invading San Francisco's Baker Beach. But Peninsula JCC campers Rebecca Shaw and Anna Klonoff used their bare hands to pull at the European dune grass with all of their strength.

A seemingly never-ending piece of the stalklike plant—overrunning beaches from Southern California to Oregon and threatening the fragile dune ecosystem—came up from the earth like a winding telephone cord.

The two girls, part of a group of 60 sixth- to ninth-graders from the Osher Marin, San Francisco and Peninsula Jewish Community Center camps, were at the beach to help the Golden Gate National Parks Association remove the non-native grass. "If they're not removed, they'll take over, driving away other plants and animals," explained Ranger Aleutia Scott of Presidio Natural Resources Park Service. "The habitat will become a monoculture."

Rebecca, in seventh grade, and Anna, in eighth, felt quite proud of their accomplishment—pulling out what Scott called, "the longest piece of dune grass I personally have ever seen in the two years that I've been here."

According to Scott, the non-native plants did not get to the United States by accident. They were deliberately brought into the country to stop the shifting dunes from interfering with the construction of highways.

Invasive plant removal and subsequent native-plant restoration projects like this one usually take between three and 10 years, she said.

It was a relatively peaceful day on the beach. Youthful chatter mixed with the lulling of waves crashing against the sand.

Todd Braman, director of youth, teen and camp services for the Peninsula JCC, described the plant-removal project as more than "just pulling weeds." He said the program was a hands-on lesson in tikkun olam that also provides a forum for mingling among the youths.

"These kids recognize that there are a lot of issues that impact their lives…that the environment needs to be taken care of," said Braman. "A lot of cultures espouse this message in very prolific ways. It's very much a part of the Jewish culture too."

Upon their arrival, teens participated in a mixer, designed by Braman and involving quotes from Jewish texts about healing the world. Once the introduction was finished, the group dispersed to the beach.

Positioned on the dunes they dug, picked and pulled away at the foliage, eventually filling up six tarps with European dune grass—"a whole truck-bed full," said Scott.

As they worked, many sang songs, others chatted, some even complained—the words "oy vey" were flung around almost as frequently as the sand on the shovels.

Outstretching her hands and fingers to show how much she'd been stuck by the prickly dune grass, Anna proclaimed of the plants: "They're pure evil. They are the bane of my existence!"

Eight-grader Kevin Foster of the Osher Marin JCC said the program reminded him of the lessons of Torah. "It makes me think about what it was like when the world first got created, about the Garden of Eden."

Ninth-grader Ariana Friedman of the Peninsula JCC called the work a "community service. We're helping to keep the world the way it's supposed to be."

She said she first learned the value of tikkun olam while preparing for her bat mitzvah.

As for the scratches on her friend Anna's hands, and her own, she said: "They'll probably be gone tomorrow."

And, more importantly, so will the weeds.