aloha every day

aloha every day

Sunday, February 10, 2008

February Beach clean up




What a success!  

Our beach clean-up today was wonderful! Of course, there were many moments with each of us in which we had to take a time to mourn the reality of why the trash was on the beach in the first place, but we quickly regained our pace and completed the day with plenty of momentum.  Thanks to ALL who participated, gave their advice and supported our efforts today.  

We met a lot of wonderful people, as usual.  Some of whom were in effort to support the same cause and some were just relaxing on the beach.  One man, in particular shared a story with us about a time when he was on a boat from Hawaii to Seattle in the 60's and he remembers seeing them dump bag after bag of trash off the back of the boat.  He said that image will stay with him forever. 

 Despite the humongous amount of marine debris we find, I remain mostly disturbed by the "fire pits" we find as left-overs from contractor fires in which they have burned their old wood and left the nails (and broken beer bottles) behind.  Not only is happening upon a scene like this dangerous...it's life threatening! Imagine a child running down to the beach and not know that the sand they are about to run through is FULL of rusty nails! What in the world must happen to make this stop?

What a blessing it was to know that there were two other groups (that we knew of) combating the same issue on different beaches around our island.  We felt the brotherhood and energy of everyone involved......thank you to Malama Makapu'u, B-E-A-C-H.org and the many volunteers that encompassed those events.  We know there were beach clean-ups organized through Kokua Foundation on Saturday, as well.  Between all of these events, we figure that over 150 people were out cleaning up the beaches this weekend! WOW!  

Again, a HUGE mahalo to all who assisted us in both the preparation and the execution of today's event!  We look forward to going back next month to continue our mission! 
ALOHA
Lindsay and Nick