annachronism
Registered: June 2008
City/Town/Province: Coral Springs
Posts: 2
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My high is about a 15-minute walk to the beach. Presumably, students spend a lot of time taking in the beautiful Florida sun and landscape. On an early release day about a year and a half ago a group of about 30 kids went to the beach, had a great time for about 3 hours, and left. Later in the day I came back to the same spot, only it was completely spoiled. The area was covered in bottles, food, wrappers, all sorts of litter. An hour later, after picking up my peers’ garbage, I realized something had to change. This was the beginning of Make A Wave.
I know that my school loves, appreciates, and does want to help their beach – they just don’t know how to. I started a beach conservation club called Make a Wave so that students could get active in the community and at the beach. In existence for almost a year now, Make a Wave has over 50 involved members, and has participated in 11 local events and organized multiple beach clean-ups. Other initiatives include our well known “fact posters” which have covered the school year round providing wandering students facts about our local beaches and what they can do to help. Next year, Make a Wave is going to be weekly water tests thanks to the sponsorship of the Surfrider Foundation, which is donating us professional $2,000 water testing equipment.
On the last day of the 2008 school year, a myriad of students made their way to the beach again to kick off their summer. At the beach that day, I saw the difference. I saw Make a Wave members as well as other students pick up their own trash, I saw them tell their friends not to leave their trash when everyone left, I saw the change that the club inspired. That was one of the greatest moments of my life.
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