In 2013, Los Angeles Chapter Surfrider Foundation Ocean Friendly Gardens Program co-chairs Tom Rau and Landscape Architect, Steve Williams, planned and installed a garden in front of Beyond Baroque, a Venice literary center housed in the old Venice City Hall building, owned by Los Angeles. The 1920s building was surrounded by mostly brown grass. The Ocean Friendly Gardens project (OFG) is a Surfrider project which focuses on diverting stormwater runoff into rain gardens, to be absorbed and infiltrated onsite. Stormwater runoff from "ocean unfriendly gardens" flows from roof/rain gutters to driveways, streets, and storm drains, picking up pollutants the entire way and ultimately depositing them into the ocean.

 
Before the installation of this garden, LA OFG led volunteers in several residential installations of OFGs. They then felt that it would be nice to do a demonstration garden on public land, with the potential for the site to host further volunteer workshops and training. They found out about the Keep LA Beautiful small grant and it looked like a good fit. They procured a few key local letters of support, applied for them, and were awarded a grant. It supplied enough funds to buy plants, and materials and pay for a contractor to remove the turf and install irrigation. Tom is a landscape architect and provided pro bono design.
They planned three volunteer workdays in April 2013. The first workday was "Hand Grading Raingardens." The second was "Mulching and Planting Natives," and the last was "Irrigation." The SF OFG program does not require using all native plants, but since Steve is also a Conservation Biologist, he values the habitat/native pollinator attractor aspect of using local CA natives; Tom agreed, so they used all natives. The garden features two rain gardens, each fed by downspouts that drain sections of the flat roof. The downspouts were extended with PVC pipe beneath the DG path, terminating in water-pressure activated "pop-up emitters." Each rain garden is designed to absorb the first "inch-plus" of rainfall.
One interesting change that happened within the first year of planting was that another group came forward, with a plan to convert the rest of the massive lawn area to raised bed food gardens, fruit trees, and wildflowers. Their plan was also successful. There is also now a community compost station, and the site is managed by another non-profit, who LA OFG has worked closely with at more recent volunteer workdays.
Several OFG Maintenance workshops/volunteer events have been staged at the garden in recent years. During these events, volunteers are briefed on the purpose and history of the garden, then trained in pruning, weeding, and planting to keep the garden looking good. The Beyond Baroque Ocean Friendly Garden serves the community by providing a lab for hands-on education in sustainable landscaping with local CA Native plants.