Why I am a Beach Captain

By Leah A. Savia

Clean Ocean Action’s Beach Captain for Island Beach State Park

Clean Ocean Action’s Beach Sweeps is an important event that I have had the distinct pleasure of volunteering for as Beach Captain at the Island Beach State Park location the last five years. I will a Beach Captain there this upcoming Spring Beach Sweep on Saturday April 25^th. As a transplant from NYC, and 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 to truly be a part of this amazing county and community? Beach Sweeps is a family, couple, grandparent, kids, and student friendly event, and it provides an education component that transcends being inside of a classroom. Very often the nature of what refuse is found is discussed, pondered, and further researched by many of the groups I work with every 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 you. Surely there are some good people reading your publication who have the desire to do something for their community, they just don’t know what. If any of you reading this swim, sail, walk, run, entertain guests, meditate, do yoga, waverun, or bask in the glorious summer sky off or on the shores of the Atlantic or surrounding waterways, to them and to you, I say -  come join us Saturday April 25^th from 9 AM to 12:30 PM at over 70 locations around New Jersey!