300 activists make Stand in the Sand
More than 300 people participated in the International Day of Peace at the Manhattan Beach Pier Saturday morning. Photo by Flying Lion Inc.
Early Saturday, hundreds of people began gathering at the beach just south of the Manhattan Beach pier. Among them were Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, senior citizens, teachers, surfers, yogis, local politicians, all sorts of people of different colors and creeds. But as they gathered closer and closer, they were directed by the calculations of a local math teacher and by a hope each held close to his or her heart. That hope was spelled out in the sand by the gathering itself, which when seen from above spelled out a single word, “Peace.”
The event was the first local celebration of the International Day of Peace, a United Nations-sanctioned holiday in which people across the planet both celebrate and attempt to embody peace. This year marked the 20th year of the event, which was launched in England by actor Jeremy Gillens as Peace One Day and was sanctioned by the UN in 2001. Peace Day now reaches two billion people each year, and has had real-world impacts — including ceasefires in Afghanistan that have enabled kids to receive vaccinations, and the launching of a peace movement in war-torn Afghanistan.
But for Manhattan Beach residents Karen Wooldridge and Donna Barney, who organized the event, the intention of bringing Peace Day to the beach locally was something smaller and simpler.
“I think we know what makes a difference for people in our particular community,” said Barney, who teaches first grade at Pennekamp Elementary. “We really need to come together. This Manhattan Beach, I really feel very connected to it in so many ways. People have said many things about Manhattan Beach — the small town and the big city and the affluence — but man, I’ve met some great families. I always love the kids in my classes, and their parents. We just need to come together more, and appreciate each other more.”
Wooldridge, an executive consultant with a business background in the sporting goods industry, said that in the wake of so many mass shootings, Peace Day helps replace a sense of hopelessness with empowerment.
“We want to equip the kids with some kind of tools and ways of changing mindset early,” Wooldbridge said. “We feel something like this may stop the next kid who is bullied in school and becomes a shooter. Who knows?”
Barney recalled one gathering at the pier, the vigil held in 2017 after the mass shooting in Las Vegas claimed the lives of two local residents. The brightness of Saturday morning’s gathering, which totaled 300 people and lasted from 8 to 9 a.m., stood in contrast.
“We are not coming together in sadness,” Barney said. “I love that about this day.”
Both coincidentally and appropriately, the hourlong event — which was emceed by Court Crandall, children’s book author (“Hugsville”), documentary filmmaker (“Free Throw”) and CEO (Positivity) — preceded Heal the Bay’s annual Beach Clean-up Day. International Day of Peace this year was given an environmental theme, climate action, by the UN.
“The global climate emergency is a threat to security and stability. As coastal areas and degraded inland areas are becoming uninhabitable, millions of people are being forced to seek safety and better lives elsewhere,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement announcing the theme. “With extreme weather events and disasters becoming more frequent and severe, disputes over dwindling resources risk fueling climate-related conflict.”
Allie Bussjaeger, who is an advisor with local non-profit Grades of Green and helped get the word out about Peace Day locally, said that addressing climate change equates with spreading peace. She noted that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just last week released a report about the catastrophic impacts that will occur as the oceans warm and sea levels rise, devastating marine ecosystems, hastening mass species extinctions, and destabilizing entire nations.
“It’s really heavy right now, what’s going on globally,” Bussjaeger said. “I would say climate change is the ultimate form of violence, humans against nature. It’s the ultimate form of injustice. And so to come together and see people smiling and having fun and engaging in peace, that was really meaningful. It gave me hope.”
Speakers included Pennekamp Principal Karina Gerger and Mayor Nancy Hersman, while former Manhattan Beach Cultural Arts chair Nancy Dunn led a short mindfulness exercise and meditation, and Erin Toppenberg from Pathways to Peace lead a closing reflection. Wooldbridge and a Pennekamp mom, Laura Jenks, president of Adidas licensee Agron Inc., were able to obtain 500 caps from Adidas, which were color-coded by participants to help arrange the forming of the word “Peace.” Mira Costa math teacher Gary Smith provided the calculations to organize people into “Peace.” Local musician Katherine Terrien sang “Imagine” and “Stand By Me” while the people within the peace gathering sang along and a drone flew overhead to capture the moment.
Barney said her spine literally tingled.
“I was nervous,” she said. “It’s just like a first-year teacher, because you’ve never done it before and there were so many unknowns. But when it started happening you have to pinch yourself, ‘Oh my god this is so amazing for this town.’ I’ve lived in Manhattan Beach my whole life and I’ve never seen anything like this at the pier, something that memorable and special…That was powerful, to me.”