More than 100 volunteers gathered Saturday morning on the south side of Cooper River Park, near the Yacht Club, for a cleanup of the park just in time for spring. Americorps Watershed Ambassadors and Sustainable Cherry Hill, the Camden County Board of Freeholders and Viridian Energy hosted the volunteer event to clean up any trash and debris on both sides of the river.
Couples, friends, families, corporate volunteers and elected officials came together and donned their work gloves and gripped their grabbers as they cleaned up trash. Even a dog named Buster showed up to help cheer folks on as his owner bagged trash.
Bags and bags of trash piled up and were taken away by a county team. Viridian and donations to Watershed Ambassadors from Krispy Crème and Starbucks supplied snacks and coffee for the event. Cherry Hill Township contributed large water cisterns so that volunteers could fill up their reusable water bottles. There were T-shirts and tote bags and a lot of team spirit and hard work on a day that seemed to be designed for being outdoors and sprucing things up for spring. The County provided work gloves, grabbers and heavy duty plastic trash and recycling bags to the volunteers.
“This is a great event and the Camden County Board of Freeholders is proud to be a part of it,” said Freeholder Jeffrey Nash, liaison to the County’s Parks Department. “Every organization that teamed to do this did a terrific job and it is wonderful to see so many people come out and care for this park that we know thousands of residents enjoy throughout the year. Our Parks Department, under Director Frank Moran, here today to help supervise, does a great job, but help from volunteers makes a real difference and shows great community involvement.”
Nash and fellow freeholders Carmen Rodriguez, Louis Cappelli, Jr. and Rodney Greco helped pick up everything from bottle caps to plastic bags along the shoreline.
Maggi Liebe, the County’s Environmental Education Coordinator, explained that no trash is too small to be a significant hazard. “Take those plastic bottle caps,” she said. “Turned upside down, they become a breeding ground for mosquitoes and, because of all the rain this year, this will be a big mosquito season. Picking up those caps helps mitigate that.”
“We applaud Americorps Watershed Ambassadors, Sustainable Cherry Hill and Viridian Energy for coming together on this event and are proud to join them,” Nash said.
The New Jersey Watershed Ambassadors Program is a community-oriented AmeriCorps program designed to raise awareness about water issues in New Jersey. Through this program, AmeriCorps members are placed at local host sites in 20 Watershed Management Areas (WMAs) from Sussex to Cape May counties to serve their local communities.
Sustainable Cherry Hill is an award-winning non-profit organization with a mission of bringing people together to build a sustainable South Jersey community. Find out more at www.sustainablecherryhill.org.
Check Camden County’s website, www.camdencounty.com and follow us on twitter and facebook to learn about more events in the County parks and to register for our email news alerts and updates.
