Volunteer for the 20th Annual Clean Your Streams Day
Every September since 1997, volunteers join forces for one day to clean the greater Toledo-area’s streams, rivers, and ditches during the annual Clean Your Streams Day. Partners for Clean Streams, and its partnering organizations, is organizing the cleanup’s 20th year this September 17th and hope it will be the best Clean Your Streams Day yet. So far 389 people have registered for the cleanup. Registration closes September 11th. Last year, 971 volunteers collected 13,528 pounds of trash from 68 different sites along 34 miles of river! The cleanup begins at 8:00am on September 17th with check-in and orientation at each of the 8 kickoff locations – Olander Park Open Air Shelter, University of Toledo Law School, Monroe St. United Methodist Church, International Park Gazebo, Oregon Municipal Building, Woodlands Park Shelter House, Johns Manville, and University of Toledo Medical Center. Volunteers will be briefed on cleanup instructions, safety precautions, data tracking, and the agenda for the remainder of the day.
By 9:00am, volunteers will spread out to their assigned sites, all within the Ottawa River, Swan Creek, Maumee River, and Maumee Bay watersheds. For three hours, volunteers collect as much trash as possible at their assigned sites and track the information on data cards. Clean Your Streams Day is part of the annual International Coastal Cleanup, during which hundreds of countries participate. In 2015, nearly 800,000 volunteers collected more than 18 million pounds of trash during the International Coastal Cleanup. After the CYS cleanup is over, all volunteers are invited to celebrate at the Volunteer Appreciation Picnic beginning at 12:00pm, where they are treated to a free lunch, thanked with a Clean Your Streams t-shirt, and provided cleanup results, door prizes, challenge awards, education about watershed information, and much more.
The impact of Clean Your Streams Day has grown over the past 19 years. Since 1997, 10,065 volunteers have collected 239, 977 pounds of trash, which equals 120 tons or approximately 10,000 adult walleye! We hope that one day, there will no longer be a need for Clean Your Streams Day. Our goal is for volunteers to see the large amount of trash in our waterways and to understand that removing it is one step towards clean, clear, and safe rivers and streams. But we must also try to prevent trash from reaching rivers and streams at all. If we don’t have cleanups like Clean Your Streams Day or try to prevent trash from entering the river, all of that debris eventually enters Lake Erie and negatively impacts the water that many of us rely on for drinking, recreation, and our economy. We hope that those who join us for this year’s Clean Your Streams Day will recognize the need for this cleanup, see the impact it has, and prevent trash from entering waterways in the future. For information or to register for Clean Your Streams Day, visit www.PartnersforCleanStreams.org/events/cys. Questions?? Contact Jessica Batanian at [email protected] or (419) 874-0727.
Press Release Contact Name: Jessica Batanian
Press Release Contact Email: [email protected]
Press Release Contact Phone: 419-874-0727
Organization Name: Partners for Clean Streams
Website or Link: www.PartnersforCleanStreams.org
Organization Address: 122 W. Front St., Suite C, Perrysburg, OH, 43551