Clean Ocean Action’s Beach Sweeps is an important event that I have had the distinct pleasure of volunteering for as a beach captain at Island Beach State Park during the last five years. I will be a beach captain there this upcoming Spring Beach Sweep on April 25. As a transplant from New York City and a new member of the Barnegat Bay watershed, I was introduced to Beach Sweeps as part of a student event at Ocean County College and consider it not only a duty, but one of my core passions — volunteering — to ensure the safety and cleanliness of our surrounding water bodies.
What better way is there to truly be a part of this amazing county and community? Beach Sweeps is a family-, couple-, grandparent-, kid- and student-friendly event, and it provides an educational component that transcends being inside of a classroom. Very often, the nature of refuse that is found is discussed, pondered and further researched by many of the groups I work with each spring and fall season. How did a crematorium tag from Bergen County get all the way down here on the bayside? It certainly spurs the imagination of our participants.
Sharing my experience and satisfaction with being a part of this event is perhaps why I am choosing to write. Surely there are some good people reading who have the desire to do something for their community, but they just don’t know what. If anyone reading this swims, sails, walks, runs, entertains guests, meditates, does yoga, waveruns or basks under the glorious summer sky off or on the shores of the Atlantic or surrounding waterways, I say come join us 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m., April 25 at over 70 locations throughout New Jersey.
Leah A. Savia
Beach Sweeps Volunteer
Toms River

