On March 22th, from 8:30am to 12:00 pm AYLUS volunteers went to Fisherman’s Beach in Suffolk county to clean up the beach. Few volunteers arrived at 8:30am, rode along the truck with the park organizer to gather tools. The majority of volunteers arrived at 9am, they were quickly debriefed on the instructions of how to navigate the pathways and where to clean. After the volunteers split up into groups of 2-4 and each person received a claw to pick up trash and a garbage can. A different team of volunteers were tasked with putting down polls around a protected area of land for two species of birds.
For the next few hours, volunteers roamed the beach and the trails picking up various items. These included bottle caps, tin cans, plastic containers, tennis balls, Styrofoam and other pieces of garbage that didn’t belong. While the beach was mostly clean, the brush beside it was littered with waste. Some of these pieces of trash, like KN-95 masks, had been there for years.
Thanks to the help of the volunteers, they were able to clean up the beach and make it a more enjoyable experience. Various bikers and hikers all expressed their gratitude when seeing the trails become spotless. Due to the 3 hours of work, now researchers who are studying the birds don’t have to worry about trash.
Volunteers:
Jake Wu (4 hours), Sunya Kong (3 hours), Erica Jiang (3 hours), Abigail Chan (3 hours)