Cane Bay Clean Up II...

The last Cane Bay Clean up went so well we decided to do another one...Cane Bay Clean Up, the Sequel!
What even prompted us to do the first one? Well, the number of birds that were needing to be rescued after falling victim to discarded fishing line, fishing hooks, discarded plastic and especially the plastic landscaping material that underlays newly laid sod in new housing developments.

On an almost daily basis I saw Facebook posts from one of my neighbors that had dedicated herself to rescuing ducks, geese, cormorants, egrets, herons and even eagles and owls, that had been caught in these plastic traps or injured in some way. Sometimes by a careless or uncaring driver.

This lady's name is Donna Dorner and she works as a volunteer with a couple of local animal rescues, and after seeing her called out so many times during a week, I reached out to her and asked if she needed help with anything.
Her response was yes: this community needs to be cleaned up!

That's how this started over a year ago with the first clean up. If you're not familiar with the Cane Bay Plantation development, there are over a dozen neighborhoods housing almost 5000 homes! There are a lot of lakes and neighborhood ponds, and apparently a lot of people and builders that like to leave trash around!

I thought that the way I could help was by using the resources of the CMNA. One of those resources is Linda Rowe who used to be the CMNA Treasurer. Well, Linda works for the South Carolina Aquarium as the Lead Coordinator of Conservation. 
Yes, part of her job is to arrange and facilitate trash pick ups and record what's collected in a database!

So, with volunteers from the CMNA, volunteers from the neighborhoods, and Linda's help the first Cane Bay Clean up went ahead.
That first pick up had over 40 volunteers and we picked up bags and bags of discarded trash!

A couple of weekends ago we had the sequel. Between Donna, Linda, and myself we contrived to make the second pick up bigger. And we did!
Using Donna's well received Facebook posts, she asked for neighborhood leaders to commit  to reaching out to their own neighborhoods and rally volunteers.
A Facebook Message group was added, and Donna and those leaders worked very hard to spread the word!

One neighbor even produced this amazing flyer!

And they succeeded.

On the day almost 150 volunteers came out to pick up trash and help wildlife!

At the end of the two hours the volunteers were out, enough trash was picked up to fill the backs of 4 large SUVs and a Ford F250 truck!

I'm convinced these volunteers have helped save a life or two. Maybe more! So, thanks to Linda Rowe and the South Carolina Aquarium, to the neighborhood leads that were able to produce an amazing response, to those people and families that came to pick up the trash, and to Donna Dorner for her never ending commitment to answer the calls!
Thank you all!