Girl Scouts, High School Students Volunteer To Clean NJ Beaches

LONG BRANCH, NJ ? Saturday, Oct. 19 was the day Clean Ocean Action held its annual fall "Beach Sweep," where volunteers gathered at 83 locations across the state to clean up New Jersey's beaches, bays, creeks and streams.

The statewide beach clean-up is now in its 39th year. Thousands of volunteers signed up this year, from Boy Scout, Girl Scout, Cub and Brownie troops, high school students, sports teams, religious groups, companies and just regular New Jersey residents who want to make a difference.

"Fall Sweeps 2024 will go down in history!" said Cindy Zipf, Clean Ocean Action director. "Mother Nature shined brightly on the day with stellar weather; there was a record number of Sweep sites and fantastic youth engagement! The inspiring support of the Sweeps gives hope that we can reduce plastic pollution in our ocean by folks reducing their use."

Volunteers met on beaches/waterways ranging from Essex County to Cape May. A week before the clean-up, remnants of Hurricane Milton brought rain and wind to New Jersey, unfortunately adding even more trash and debris to be removed.

Clean Ocean Action will publish their annual list of all the trash removed in April.

Some highlights from Saturday:

Strong turnouts throughout the state, including an estimated 300 volunteers at Sandy Hook. Students from the Marine Academy of Science and Technology (MAST) managed hundreds of volunteers at Sandy Hook.

"Environmental stewardship isn?t just about cleaning the beaches but building community and the Beach Sweeps exemplify this every year,? said Liza Baskin, a marine science teacher at MAST.

Union Beach joined the list of sites again after a few seasons off due to construction. Longtime Union Beach resident, environmentalist and avid boater Betty Jean Downing had sweeping success as the new Beach Captain for this site.

Employees from McLoone?s ocean-side restaurants volunteered. ?Several of our restaurants are on the water so we owe a good deal of our success to the efforts of Clean Ocean Action, which has done an incredible job of advocacy for our waterways ... and it shows! We are honored to be part of the Beach Sweeps and are happy our terrific employees are getting involved,? said owner Tim McLoone.

The 2024 Fall Beach Sweeps statewide sponsors were: Bank of America, Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey Realtors, Wakefern Food Corp., ShopRite and Vantage Apparel.

County sponsors were: Kearny Bank Foundation (Monmouth County), Bayshore Recycling Corporation (Montecalvo & Bayshore Family of Companies) (Monmouth County), Target.

Local sponsors were: Atlantic City Electric (Atlantic City: S. Albany Ave & S. Florida Ave), Baine Contracting (Pt. Pleasant: Maryland Ave), Brookdale Community College ? Student Life & Activities (Asbury Park: Convention Hall), Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (Seaside Park: Grant Ave.), Crum & Forster (Long Branch: Brighton Ave), Enterprise Mobility Foundation (Keyport: Cedar Street Park), Jenkinson's Aquarium (Pt. Pleasant: Jenkinson's), Manasquan Bank (Manasquan: Main St Beach), Memorial Sloan Kettering (Middletown: Bayshore Waterfront Park), Monmouth Ocean Regional Realtors (Asbury Park: Convention Hall), Republic Services (Asbury Park: 1st Ave Beach), ServPro of Aberdeen/Holmdel (Aberdeen: Cliffwood Beach), Shire Realty, Josh Tennant, & Ken Gunther (Sea Girt: Beacon Blvd), Stratus Tech (Asbury Park: Convention Hall), United Teletech Financial Federal Credit Union (Long Branch: Seven Presidents Park)