My beach volunteering project by Danhuy Nguyen (Student FVHS)

Phase 1: looking for a volunteering option

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:06:56 UTC

When first planning to do this volunteering project, I had the idea to originally do a four person group of beach cleanups but due to all of the group members having tight schedules, I decided that it was best for me to work by myself or with somebody who was not busy. It was actually pretty funny because when I asked Sam what he was doing, he said that he was going to distribute food to seniors by himself so he could get it done faster, but fast forward to now and what a surprise, me and Sam became partners for this project to help clean up trash at the beach.

Phase 2: Reserving a spot for the volunteering

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:09:05 UTC

At first, we had tried to find many volunteering opportunities that were near us and were the soonest, but all the slots had been filled in, so we opted for the weekend. After some hard research we were lucky enough to discover an organization called the "Orange County COASTKEEPER", who did monthly beach cleanups all around orange county, and conveniently the next one was on May 11, at Huntington Beach. Sam and I were lucky enough to find this opportunity at such a last minute. So as soon as I saw there were two spots open I immediately booked the slots for me and Sam.

Phase 3: What we did to prepare for the beach cleanup

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:13:30 UTC

As we worked throughout the week in order to prepare for this assignment, we did research on why this organization was doing this. What was their cause? I found out that their reason was to provide everybody an opportunity to help protect and restore the environments we call home. Their ultimate goal is to unite Orange County communities through "service, responsibility, and sharing of the natural environment." According to their website, they have removed almost 165,000 pounds of trash since 2011. Just last year, they had over 17,000 pounds of trash removed from dirty beaches. To prepare for the cleanup, we bought garbage bags and that was pretty much all that was required.

Phase 4: The day of the beach cleanup

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:19:20 UTC

On the day of the beach cleanup, we met many amazing people who were so dedicated to their task of cleaning the beach, which inspired me and Sam heavily. The organization split up the volunteers into many mini-groups, and as me and Sam came together, we were assigned to be a team and cover the area of the beach across the street from Pacific City to where the oil factories were. We met many amazing people, and one who inspired me the most was the leader of the crew, Mr. Ives Tejada. Unfortunately, we did not take pictures of the staff but we were able to take photos of me and Sam as we participated in the cleaning of the beach. We were tasked with overlooking and cleaning the boardwalk of the beach, not the actual waterside as there was no trash there but a lot of Seaweed.

This was my social media post about our cleanup, I was able to get around 500 views!

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:20:21 UTC

I got dm'ed by many people asking why I was doing it, and I responded with, "I'm volunteering with an Orange County organization, come out and help if you can!"

video footage of the cleanup!

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:21:50 UTC

Before Danny uncovered a huge tent after what he thought was a little piece of plastic

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:21:54 UTC

Danny after finding a huge tent buried in the sand after what he thought was a small piece of plastic

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:21:59 UTC

Phase 6: Reflection after completion

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:31:15 UTC

To be honest, the boardwalk area of the beach was kept pretty well organized and clean but we were able to spot littering left by many people and were able to pick it up for our garbage bag. I was proud that all the people who were hanging out at the beach were taking great care of it. This was a great learning experience for me because I think that without this assignment, I would not have taken the initiative to find volunteering opportunities, but after doing this assignment, I really want to help today's society, because people have started to care less and less about the world and if I could help clean up a little bit of our planet to prevent polluting it, I will. I was very happy that even though we were not able to find as much trash as expected, we left the beach as a better place than what it had started the day as!

Phase 5: What we did during the time

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-12 22:36:50 UTC

Me and Sam's task was to find as much plastic as possible within our two-hour time limit in our area. We were on our own after hearing our task. As Sam and I strolled the boardwalk, we were able to spot a lot of plastic trash that was left all over the beach, such as plastic water bottles, empty plastic ice bags, many plastic bags, food wrappers, cups, cigarette butts, and even utensils. I worked very hard to spot all the trash, as I had even pointed out all the little of the little trash pieces that I had spotted hidden in the sand. Every once in a while, we walked past big mounds of sand that had multiple pieces of trash in it, including cardboard, plastic, and even a tent hidden under the sand! I think the piece of trash we found the most was probably plastic, considering that more than 350 million metric tons of plastic is thrown on the ground each year!

2 connections to what we read this year

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 01:43:54 UTC

Some examples of connections that we made this year to what we read in English class this year was the book, "The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind", because for example when nobody believed in William and his windmill, there were times when Sam did not think that we would find trash, but I believed that we would. Another example of a connection was also found in the same book, it was about how William continued to persevere to build his Windmill, Sam and I persevered and continued to look through the clean beach in order to find every speck of trash.

We bought a shovel to dig up trash better

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 06:56:59 UTC

Danny happy with himself because he felt like he helped out a lot by making the beach a little cleaner

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:02:59 UTC

Our last piece of trash we found while on our way back from the cleanup

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:03:59 UTC

A picture Danny's mom took after we finished the cleanup

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:04:45 UTC

The tent was too big to fit in the garbage bag so we had to throw it away in a big trash can

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:05:05 UTC

A little treat me and Danny had because it was so hot after the cleanup

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:05:23 UTC

Danny trying to hit a quick move after finding a piece of trash lol!

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:06:23 UTC

A plastic bag wrapped around a pole; plastic was the most common piece of trash we found

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:06:37 UTC

Danny picking up a small piece of trash, unfortunately got sand in his slides after picking up too

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:06:44 UTC

Sam picking up a small piece of plastic, unfortunately got sand in his slides while picking it up

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 07:06:54 UTC

Citings:

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 14:24:59 UTC

https://www.coastkeeper.org/cleanup-oc/#:~:text=As%20waste%20continually%20pollutes%20our,annual%20OC%20Coastal%20Cleanup%20Day.

https://www.coastkeeper.org/cleanup-oc/

Reflection video

dnguyen204 — 2024-05-13 18:41:09 UTC

Here is the link to our reflection video: I was not able to attach it onto the padlet because it said that the file size was too big. So I created a link that should allow you to watch it