I could not be more pleased with my decision to spend this past Saturday afternoon with a group of environmentally conscious locals during the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center’s Intracoastal mangrove and beach cleanup. From the center’s volunteers on down the line, everyone toiled gleefully in the wooded seascape removing items both grand and small. The most cumbersome piece of refuse I observed was a massive wooden door, which at one point clearly served as the entrance to a palatial estate. Beth Mclean has been volunteering at Gumbo for three years and said she is never surprised by the items.
“People end up finding all sorts of things during these cleanups and you wonder how some of it gets here,” she said.
Kathi McCutcheon said she and her husband routinely do reef cleanups, and the bounty can be even more frightening.
“The oddest thing we came upon down there was an entire, fully in tact toilet,” she said.
Boca Prep students Michelle Friswell, 16, and Neal Rosenthal, 17, are members of the National Honor Society and said they would be on board for a beach cleanup even if community service hours were not in the offering.
“I love the outdoors and the ocean, and it feels really good to know you are helping keep the Earth clean,” said Friswell.
For information about upcoming Gumbo Limbo programs, visit www.gumbolimbo.org.