A continuing memorial to a departed and beloved community volunteer has taken the form of an annual commemorative service day each Nov. 3.
\nThe special day honors Maruta Gardner, former principal at Mission Bay High School, who was killed in 2016 by an intoxicated driver while painting out graffiti in Mission Beach. Nov. 3 is noteworthy because that was the date the city declared as Maruta Gardner Day recognizing the educator for her community accomplishments.\u00a0
\n“My goal is to make it an annual day of service as a legacy for Maruta,” said\u00a0Dawn Reilly of Beautiful MB Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to Mission Beach\u2019s enhancement.\u00a0“It\u2019s in spirit with how she lived her life, and how she brought a lot of people to community service.”
\nReilly noted Gardner had a mystique about her when it came to community recruitment.\u00a0
\n“You\u2019d show up at an event \u2014 and the next thing you knew you had a task to do,” Reilly said. “She was really inspiring in that way.”
\nAfter Gardner\u2019s unexpected death, organizations and neighbors in Mission and Pacific beaches came together to memorialize her. A mural honoring Gardner, designed by Israel (Ezra) Cervantes, was painted by him, along with the aid of the Mission Bay High Mural Club, last year\u00a0on a building near the high school\u2019s gymnasium.
\nA second inspirational community mural is in the works.
\n“I\u2019ve asked for a piece of wall on city property,” said Reilly noting the theme this time will be inspiring community service. “It will be geared toward people in service \u2014 military and emergency responders, police, lifeguards and the fire department,” she said. “We\u2019ll put out that theme and let artists give us several renditions. Then we\u2019ll pick three for the public to choose from.”
\nThe inaugural Maruta Gardner Day in 2017 was on a Friday. This year\u2019s second installment honoring her volunteerism falls on a Saturday. Volunteers will reconnoiter at Pacific Beach Taylor Branch Library at 4275 Cass St. at 9 a.m.
\nA participant again in this year\u2019s Nov. 3 commemorative clean-up will be Pacific Beach Street Guardians. The social enterprise nonprofit hires homeless to perform custodial and community beautification projects for Discover PB, the community\u2019s business improvement district.
\n“Last year we took people out into the community and did weeding and trash pickup, and we will do something similar this year,” said Caryn Blanton, the group\u2019s founder\/director. “We\u2019re hoping this year to to get even more people than last year because it\u2019s on a Saturday.”
\nBlanton said the guardian\u2019s program serves a dual purpose: enhancing the community while providing homeless the opportunity to “commit to making a change and doing some good things for the community.”
\n“We\u2019re trying to get everybody together on Nov. 3 to do community service like neighborhood cleanups, graffiti removal, etc.,” said Reilly of the event moving forward. “I\u2019m hoping other organizations will just decide every year on a community-service project.”
\nReilly said a whole page at\u00a0beautifulmb.com, is devoted to Maruta Gardner Day. “There are two links,” she said. “One goes to a Go Fund Me page for a mural. The other is for a $1,500 scholarship set up every year to go to a deserving Mission Bay High School student.”
\nOf what cleanup volunteers need to bring along on Nov. 3, Reilly said, “We have all the supplies. All people have to do really is show up.” Maruta Gardner Day
\nWhat: Volunteers will meet 9 a.m. on Nov. 3 at Pacific Beach Taylor Branch Library at 4275 Cass St. Info: beautifulmb.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A continuing memorial to a departed and beloved community volunteer has taken the form of an annual commemorative service day each Nov. 3. The special day honors Maruta Gardner, former principal at Mission Bay High School, who was killed in 2016 by an intoxicated driver while painting out graffiti in Mission Beach. Nov. 3 is […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":282033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Community to clean up in memory of Maruta Gardner","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}