Every year, thousands of children experience a Christmas morning with no gifts to open. To help tackle this crisis, ABC7 and Southland firefighters host the "Spark of Love Toy Drive." With the love and support of "Spark of Love Toy Drive" donors and sponsors, children across Southern California will receive a new toy each holiday season.

The "Spark of Love Toy Drive" begins November 25 through December 18, 2008. A collection box will be at OADC for easy drop-off, all toys must be new and unwrapped. OADC staff will deliver the toys to Fire Station #63 at the end of the drive.

Everything we consume has a climate impact, but manufacturing and trucking water bottles to homes with clean tap water seems particularly wasteful. The Beverage Marketing Corporation reports that Americans consumed 31.2 billion liters of water in 2006 - nearly 9 liters per month for every man, woman, and child.

Manufacturing all those bottles requires 900,000 tons of plastic, the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, and emit more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. Trucking around all those heavy bottles emits even more greenhouse gases. Beyond the climate impact there's the massive waste - 86% of water bottles aren't recycled -- and water bottling is also, ironically, a very water-intensive endeavor. The Pacific Institute tells us that it takes three liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water!

To learn more on how to lessen your carbon footprint and break the plastic bottled water habit, click on the link below.

The Annual Ocean Adventures Dive Club Holiday Party will be Tuesday, December 16, at 7pm, one week later than the usual club meeting. Add a reminder to your calendar and join OADC staff for our annual year-end celebration.

For those of you who have not attended, the holiday party has NO speakers but plenty of great food, good friends, and a running slide show of past dive trips.

Come in anytime before the holidays and create a dive gear "wish list" that "Santa Steve" will keep on file when your friends and family go shopping for your perfect dive-related gift. Gift certificates are available and can be purchased in any dollar amount.

Save the date December 16 and make plans to start the holiday party season off with your friends from Ocean Adventures.

Take advantage of the unusually warm Fall weather and superior visibility before the end of 2008! OADC has only two more boat trips before the end of the year; November 30, Anacapa, aboard the Spectre and December 6, Catalina on the Sundiver.

Don't you miss out on the great visibility and fun dives on these final boats of the year! Book early, these boats will fill up fast!