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San Fernando Valley girl is named Kids Ocean Day youth ambassador of 2024

Ella Basel loves spending time near the ocean. But a few years ago, she noticed plastic washing up ashore or being littered about during frequent trips to the beach with her family.

Ella, a student at Balboa Gifted/High Ability Magnet Elementary School in the San Fernando Valley, decided to do something to help the environment. A third grader at the time, she started a clean-up club to pick up litter around her school campus.

“Every time I see a piece of trash, I want to pick it up,” Ella, now 11 and in the fifth grade, said this week. “I wanted to teach other kids about the ocean and everything that we’re doing” to pollute it. Club members at her school not only pick up trash around campus but also learn about the ocean.

For her commitment to the environment, Ella has been named the first youth ambassador for Kids Ocean Day LA, an environmental awareness campaign.

On Thursday, May 23, Ella joined about 3,000 kids throughout L.A. County who took part in the 29th annual Kids Ocean Day on local beaches, celebrating this year’s theme of “Making Ripples.”

After the litter cleanup at Dockweiler State Beach in Playa Del Rey, the huge crowd of students carefully assembled on the sand, organized in the shape of a giant, smiling beachgoer making a giant ripple. The image, photographed from a helicopter flying overhead, illustrated the message that it takes just one person to inspire others to keep the coastlines clean.

Michael Klubock, founder of The Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education and Kids Ocean Day, said the event marked the first time many of the students had been to a beach. The environmental awareness campaign, he said, can spark activism among students.

“We are honored to make that kind of impact on a child because we know that creating environmental change can start with just one person,” Klubock said.

Kids Ocean Day began in the mid-1990s. More than 785,000 children have taken part since then, and more than 8,000 kids across California are expected to participate in beach cleanups this month.

In recent months, The Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education hosted school assemblies where students learned how rain carries plastic litter down storm drains and into the ocean, polluting food resources and entangling wild animals.

For Ella, being named a youth ambassador “means having fun with people and … getting them to support the ocean as well.”

Ella, whose favorite subjects are science and math, is also a self-described animal lover. Her favorites are dolphins and sea otters, and she hopes to become a veterinarian.

It will be awhile before Ella can become an animal doctor. In the meantime, her advice to everyone is simple:

“Make sure to always pick up your trash after you eat. And make sure to clean up.”