Free T-shirts are still available at Tracy Park Gallery
On Thursday, May 30, Malibu residents lined up to get a free white T-shirt designed by Blaze Pearson and Alyssa Crosby that read, “Give Us Speed Cameras! For a Safe PCH,” a Pacific Coast Highway Safety Awareness Campaign.
“I’m thrilled to have everyone here and I’m thrilled to be able to give something to our community that’s really important and just bringing awareness in fact that we do need speed cameras on PCH,” Gallery owner Tracy Park said who held the event at her venue. “So I’m very happy that we all got to put together, it came out beautifully, and our whole showed up for us, so I’m stoked about that.”
The free event was held in hopes of raising awareness of the dangers of PCH’s dangers and the critical need for speed cameras.
The T-shirts were inspired and designed by Crosby and Pearson, a Malibu High School alumnus. The shirts included major landmarks in Malibu such as the Malibu Pier. Park also said it was the benefactors’ idea to create T-shirts thayempower locals to advocate for the immediate installation of speed cameras on PCH.
“The stop sign was my first inspiration, so instead of S-T-O-P, I thought of ‘Slow the ***k down,” Crosby said. “Here in Malibu, surfers are constantly running down PCH, which is also a real danger when people are speeding, so putting the surfboard in the hand of the family running across and the boogie board and the PCH sign.”
Crosby and Park also attended the City Council meeting on May 28 to invite the community to the event on Thursday but to also hand the councilmembers free T-shirts.
Park posted on social media, “STFD! Slow the F down on one side and on the other, the lovely view of Malibu, along the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway. We want to protect it and everyone living and traveling up and down it.”
Park said the anonymous donor generously funded the creation and manufacturing of the T-shirts to honor the cause of being safe on PCH, as well as to show respect for those victims who have lost their lives on PCH.
“We tried to include all the major landmarks that you think of when you’re on PCH and just show all the life that exists on PCH, and we want to protect by slowing everyone down and making it a safer place,” Pearson said. “Tracy has a lot of great friends who were here and it’s also great because even if people didn’t make it to the show, this is a small enough town that all the shirts coming out, the word is going to spread that this can be the starting point and it can go around.”
Crosby said she commutes from Thousand Oaks to her art studio on PCH.
“I come here pretty much everyday from Thousand Oaks, and I just love it here and want to keep it safe,” Crosby said.
Crosby has also met Michel and Ellen Shane, the parents of 13-year-old Emily Shane, who was tragically killed on PCH on April 3, 2010.
The people in attendance enjoyed music and mocktails on Thursday night. The following day Pearson went to social media to thank everyone who attended and said more T-shirts are still available at Tracy Park Gallery.
