Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

Campus Clean up November 2007
I participated in cleaning up Ocean County College by picking up trash on the entire premises. Despite being a smoke-free campus, most of the litter on Ocean County College was cigarette butts. The group in charge of this cleanup is called New Jersey Community Water Watch. After volunteering for this cleanup and seeing first hand how terrible pollution is I decided to become more active with NJ Community Water Watch and I became a cleanup intern. My job as a cleanup intern is to plan cleanups in the community and make the community aware of why we need to keep New Jersey clean. At this November Campus Cleanup we collected at least ten pounds of cigarette butts alone! Many of the other garbage we collected were small snack bags and numerous bottles that we recycled.

Education Week 2008
In January as a member of NJ Community Water Watch I participated in Education Week. Leaders from Water Watch and some of their interns went to various schools in New Jersey to teach about water quality. We taught elementary and middle school aged students about runoff and ground water. We also encouraged them to get involved with taking steps on how to approach a problem our state has. Seventy-five percent of the water in our state is too polluted to swim in. Many of the children told us they were not allowed to swim in their local lakes and would not want to even if they could. Education Week was a great way to introduce how pollution is affecting our environment on a level that children can understand.

Campus Cleanup April 2008
With all of the hours and dedication I put into NJ Community Water Watch at Ocean County College I was unanimously elected President in March. To me this meant I was going to fulfill the role as President and really step up to the plate. I organized another cleanup on campus and worked hand in hand with the Director of New Jersey Community Water Watch at Ocean County College. The two of us did everything from getting a speaker at the event to making sure we had advertisements in every building on campus. We both also recruited students by going to classes and letting people know we were having a cleanup on campus. Some teachers even give extra credit for those who attend which increases the number of volunteers. For this cleanup I was in charge of volunteers who were going to clean near our schoolâ€™s lake. We filled three bags with recycling just from around the lake alone. We also pulled up a lot of plastic and also some fishing supplies.

Long Swamp Creek Cleanup/Earth Day 2008
Our largest cleanup of the year was our Earth Day cleanup which we had over 80 volunteers. Although I was not able to attend the cleanup because of work, I planned a majority of it. I contacted people who showed interest in cleanups or who attended cleanups before to see if they were coming. I also made posters (which I recycled after) for the cleanup and emailed professors letting them know this was a huge community cleanup. A state commissioner showed up to the cleanup to praise NJ Community Water Watch for this very successful cleanup. Any volunteer who registered for the cleanup ahead of time received free lunch at the Old Country Buffet. One of my jobs on this cleanup was to confirm and type a list of all of the people who had planned on coming. The cleanup was huge and there was so much trash!

Beach Sweeps, Seaside NJ April 2008
The one event that was a project I had been working on since January was Beach Sweeps. Twice a year NJ has a state wide program called Beach Sweeps which hundreds of volunteers gather together and clean New Jersey Beaches. I registered Ocean County College/ NJ Community Water Watch for Beach Sweeps in January. I attended a meeting in March ran by Clean Ocean in Action who are in charge of Beach Sweeps to let us know how things were going to work. Clean Ocean Action supplied us with brochure flyers that we could hand out in the community and on our campus. They also gave all â€œBeach Captainsâ€ representing the various locations a gift card to Shop Rite because Shop Rite is one of the sponsors for Beach Sweeps. Clean Ocean Action also gave us a sign for our location so that people would see our site from the highway. Before the event I posted advertisements in the campus buildings and other Interns whom volunteer with me placed them in places where they worked or in shopping centers. A few days before I went shopping with my director and another intern to buy food for our volunteers. We bought brownie and cookie mix and I made over 64 of each. We had almost 30 volunteers show up at our location in Seaside for Beach Sweeps. Our spot was right near the very polluted bay. We mostly found pieces of large wood or tons or bottles that the town then recycled. However, the one thing that outraged me was the barrel of oil my boyfriend pulled out of the water and rolled to where our garbage was collected. Who would want to swim in a bay that has so much pollution in it?

I am hoping that next semester since I am more aware of how Water Watch runs I can plan even more cleanups than this year.