More Than Just a Cleanup

On April 27th, thousands of volunteers came out to celebrate the beauty of the Charles River and help spruce it up for the beautiful months ahead. Almost a month later, I have had time to reflect on that day and what it means to me.

I first heard about the Charles River Earth Day Cleanup last April as a junior at Lesley University. One of my classes required a "do-it-yourself field trip" where students would attend an event and write a paper on it. I was familiar with the CRWA but had never worked with them on a project like this. I saw this as a golden opportunity to not only get a good topic for my paper but to also clean up the area where my friends and I would hang out. I told some of my classmates about this and the next thing I knew I was leading half the class to the Charles on April 21st, 2012. I ended up documenting the event and presented it to my class as my final project. I got an A and all was good.

Later, as I was searching for internships and I found that the CRWA was looking for new interns. I jumped on the opportunity to work for the group that put together such a fantastic event like the cleanup; I knew I wanted to be a part of it. And here I am, several months later in my last week of interning with the CRWA. It has been a very rewarding experience to work in the non-profit sector of Environmental Science. I'm most proud of how successful this years cleanup was. I had previously only experienced the cleanup as a volunteer but I had been given the opportunity to see it from the other side. I worked with the amazing CRWA staff to help organize this event and to see it go from tasks on a spreadsheet to volunteer-taken photos on our website has been truly memorable.

Being a part of such a meaningful event has made a lasting impression on me but the most impressionable aspect of the cleanup has been the volunteers that made this all possible. Thousands of volunteers took time out of their busy schedules and came together with one common cause: to clean up our beloved Charles. All it took was just three hours and we all helped to remove over 5 tons of garbage from our riverbanks. 5 tons in 3 hours!! Simply remarkable. So what does this say about us? Maybe it says that we're slobs that toss our trash out the window and forget about it. That we don't care or appreciate the natural beauty that is around us. Pessimists may think so, but not me. This event showed me that when we come together, we can do amazing things. In light of recent events, us Bostonians have had a renewed sense of camaraderie and community.  That spirit was put on display on April 27th when we put on our gloves, rolled up our sleeves, and restored one of the things that makes Boston so great. Our Charles River is certainly clean now, but we showed that we still love that dirty water.