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Tag: neighborhood cleanup

  • Kicking Off the Year With a Cleaner Hollywood

    Kicking Off the Year With a Cleaner Hollywood

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    After a week of rain, the sun came out just in time for the monthly Hollywood neighborhood cleanup organized by the Church of Scientology in coordination with The Way to Happiness Foundation and the LAPD.

    Press Release
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    updated: Jan 22, 2019


    HOLLYWOOD, Calif., January 22, 2019 (Newswire.com)
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    Dozens of volunteers gathered at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre on Jan. 19, and took off—carrying shovels, rakes, brooms and heavy-duty trash bags—for the 11th consecutive monthly “Hollywood Village” cleanup, made more challenging because of a week of heavy rain that left the neighborhood sodden and bedraggled. But despite the prospect of soggy cardboard, waterlogged food scraps, and discarded and mildewed clothes and bedding, the Southern California sun, clear skies and 78-degree temperature lifted spirits, and everyone pitched in with enthusiasm.

    The Hollywood Neighborhood Cleanup takes place (rain or shine) the third Saturday of every month. It is organized by the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International in coordination with The Way to Happiness Foundation and the LAPD.

    Volunteers gather at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International at 5930 Franklin Avenue for coffee and donuts provided by community partners including Kettle Glazed Donuts and The Oaks Gourmet Market. Then it’s off to some of the seediest sections of Hollywood.

    Before the morning was over, volunteers filled 40 large bags with trash and disposed of four crack pipes and 44 syringes—items that can prove fatal if discovered by curious neighborhood children.

    Each month, the volunteers visit local homeless encampments. Homelessness is a serious and growing problem in Southern California. According to a KCET feature last summer, between 2010 and 2017, homelessness spiked by 42 percent from an estimated 38,700 to 55,000, with an average 32 percent increase in rent driving more and more locals into the streets. But it’s not only financial woes that spawn the homeless phenomenon—many who live on the streets also suffer from drug addiction or have been marginalized by social and personal difficulties. Which is where “The Way to Happiness” enters the equation.

    Volunteers hand out copies of this common-sense moral code. “It is full of gems,” says James Richardson who heads up the Celebrity Centre security team and began carrying out Hollywood cleanups several years ago to make the neighborhood safer for parishioners and local residents. “We’ve had security guards sit next to a homeless person for hours simply reading the precepts of the booklet to them,” he says. “Suddenly, one of them will spark something and you see a change in their face. We even had one guy come back to us to thank us for leaving one of the booklets with him. He was planning to kill himself that afternoon but after reading the booklet he saw a way out of the trap he found himself in and he decided to fix it.”

    Immensely popular since its first publication in 1981, some 115 million copies of the booklet have been distributed in more than 100 languages in nearly 200 nations.

    Volunteers are planning a special event on Feb. 17 to mark the first anniversary of these monthly Hollywood cleanups. Anyone wishing to participate to help make the neighborhood safe and clean is welcome to join in the action.

    Source: ScientologyNews.org

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  • Bringing The Way to Happiness to a Region in Need of a Boost

    Bringing The Way to Happiness to a Region in Need of a Boost

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    Volunteers gathered in a Paris suburb for a neighborhood cleanup and to hand out copies of the common-sense moral code from which the group takes its name

    Press Release
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    updated: Feb 12, 2018


    PARIS, February 12, 2018 (Newswire.com)
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     The Way to Happiness Foundation of France is helping tackle community issues in Paris suburbs.

    Ten million French people live in these neighborhoods, in some of which unemployment among young men is as high as 45 percent. With no hope for the future, many turn to drugs and crime.

    There is no person alive who cannot make a new beginning.

    L. Ron Hubbard, Founder, Scientology

    Because some sociological studies have found that disorder in urban neighborhoods can lead to more crime, the first thing the volunteers did was to organize a cleanup. Equipped with plastic bags and cleaning gear, they spruced up the neighborhood. 

    They also set up their tent, where they handed out thousands of copies of The Way to Happiness, the common-sense moral code written by author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. 

    Comprising 21 precepts for better living, The Way to Happiness is unique for several reasons: most moral codes are closely connected to a particular faith. The Way to Happiness is nonreligious and may be used by people of any faith — or no faith at all.

    Another special feature of the booklet is that it doesn’t simply lay out what one should or shouldn’t do — it presents guidelines and practical ideas to apply its 21 moral principles. 

    For example, with heavy unemployment, one’s odds for being hired can be improved by being industrious and competent — two of the precepts of the moral code. The booklet lays out three simple but vital steps anyone can take to improve their competence. 

    In short, the precepts of this booklet are a tool for taking the chance out of life and gaining an edge.

    In the epilogue, Mr. Hubbard wrote:

    “One can feel at times like a spinning leaf blown along a dirty street, one can feel like a grain of sand stuck in one place. But nobody has said that life was a calm and orderly thing: it isn’t. One isn’t a tattered leaf nor a grain of sand: one can, to greater or lesser degree draw his road map and follow it.

    “One can feel that things are such now that it is much too late to do anything, that one’s past road is so messed up that there is no chance of drawing a future one that will be any different: there is always a point on the road when one can map a new one. And try to follow it. There is no person alive who cannot make a new beginning.”

    In cities across the globe, nonprofit organizations, community leaders, educators and police have adopted The Way to Happiness to fight crime, help people improve their lives and raise the standards and potential of their communities.

    The Church of Scientology Paris sponsors this chapter of The Way to Happiness Foundation. The church and its members are proud to share the tools for happier living contained in The Way to Happiness. The mission of The Way to Happiness Foundation is to reverse the moral decay of society by restoring trust and honesty the world over through the publication and widespread distribution of The Way to Happiness.

    That mission is accomplished on a grass-roots level, worldwide, by individuals who share The Way to Happiness booklet with others and so bring about increased tolerance and understanding between families, friends, groups, communities, nations and mankind — making a safer, less-violent world for all. The book has been distributed in 115 languages in 186 nations.

    Source: ScientologyNews.org

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