Maruta Gardner was so highly regarded in the beach communities that several local groups have teamed up to turn their annual beach cleanup day in November into a tribute to the late educator, who was killed two years ago by a drunk driver while painting out graffiti on the Mission Beach jetty.
\n“From a simple beach cleanup, it has now blossomed into a multi-project community-service day,” said Dawn Reilly, project administrator for Beautiful MB, a nonprofit dedicated to community improvement and enhancement. “Maruta Gardner touched countless lives in our beach communities, as a friend, an educator, an activist, and through decades of selfless community service,”Reilly said. “She is responsible for encouraging many of us to take active roles in various clubs and boards.”
\nReilly added, “Maruta was such a remarkable lady that the San Diego City Council declared Nov. 3 as \u2018Maruta Gardner Day.\u2019 We will always remember her, but we can best honor her spirit on that day by\u00a0following her example: performing community service,\u00a0and in doing so inspire others to serve in the future, and\u00a0strengthen our community bonds. I am hoping together we can create a true day of service as part of her legacy.”
\nGardner’s passion was community service, which anyone who’d seen her painting out graffiti along the boardwalk and elsewhere in Mission Beach can attest to.
\nReilly said there are five projects volunteers\u00a0can choose from in participating in Maruta Gardner Day on Friday, Nov. 3:??\u00a0
\n\u2022 Graffiti cleanup in Mission and Pacific beaches;
\n\u2022\u00a0Community cleanup in Pacific Beach;?
\n\u2022\u00a0Rose Creek and Crown Point Preserve borders cleanup;?
\n\u2022\u00a0Outreach at senior centers to offer companionship and various tasks;
\n\u2022\u00a0Painting beach-themed art on utility boxes along Mission Boulevard in Mission Beach (artists still needed).
\n“We are also seeking funding for a tribute mural at Mission Bay High School,” said Reilly. “Interested parities are urged to contact Beautiful Mission Beach ASAP.”??
\nOrganizations participating in Maruta Gardner Day include Mission Beach Town Council, OMBAC, Mission Beach Women\u2019s Club, Pacific Beach Town Council, PB Street Guardians, Pacific Beach Library, Friends of PB Library, Beautiful PB, Mission Bay High School, MBHS Muralist Club, The Patio Restaurant Group and ANOC World Beach Games 2019.
\nOf Gardner, Gary Wonacott, president of Mission Beach Town Council, said it’s impossible to overlook the crucial role she played as a public servant\u2014 or her positive influence on others.
\n“There is a term of endearment, \u2018Marutarized,\u2019 which means that you are doing something, usually related to community service, that you had no intention of doing, and don\u2019t quite know how you ended up doing it \u2014 but you know that Maruta had something to do with making it happen,” said Wonacott. “Many people in the Mission Beach Women\u2019s Club and the Mission Beach Town Council were Marutarized. I was Marutarized, which is how I ended up serving on the Mission Beach Town Council.”
\nWonacott added, “There were countless days and evenings when we would see her on her tricycle painting out the graffiti.”
\nReilly hopes Maruta Gardner Day will not be a one-time observance.
\n“I certainly hope it gets its own legs, that community groups make it happen year after year, in one fashion or another,” Reilly said.
\nGet updated event details, sign up to volunteer or make a donation at\u00a0www.BeautifulMB.com.?
\nJonathan Domingo Garcia, 24, the drunk driver who killed Gardner, 68, in Mission Beach in February 2015 was sentenced to 11 years in prison.\u00a0San Diego Superior Court Judge Kathleen Lewis also\u00a0ordered Garcia to pay $1,349 in restitution and fined him $3,524. She gave him credit for serving 400 days in jail.
\nGardner, a retired teacher and principal at Mission Bay High School, was struck at 5:45 p.m. by Garcia, who drove away without stopping from the scene in the 600 block of San Diego Place.\u00a0Judge Lewis said she believed Garcia was “a danger to others,” mentioning his first hit-and run accident that occurred that January, some three weeks before he killed Gardner. Garcia pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and admitted leaving the scene of an accident. Maruta Gardner Day
\nWhen: Friday, Nov. 3
\nWhere: Pacific and Mission beaches. Info: www.BeautifulMB.com.?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maruta Gardner was so highly regarded in the beach communities that several local groups have teamed up to turn their annual beach cleanup day in November into a tribute to the late educator, who was killed two years ago by a drunk driver while painting out graffiti on the Mission Beach jetty. “From a simple […]<\/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":"Beaches clean up their act in memory of community activist","_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-282034","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\/282034","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=282034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282034\/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=282034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}