The Beaver River Watershed Alliance along with Notre Dame High School in Bonnyville took part in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.
The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup is a national event encouraging people to clean up the trash and litter on shorelines across the country.
The school, as well as volunteers who came to lend a hand, got together at Jessie Lake across the street from the school to pick up trash along the shoreline of the local lake and in the parking lot.
Six classes, which included approximately 125 Grade 9 and 10 students, took part in this yearly initiative.
This is the third year the students have been involved, but the cleanup began around eight years ago with members of the committee cleaning the shoreline before meetings.
“We love involving the school and having the youth out. This is a really great spot for them to hang out and they love to have lunch out here so for them to be out cleaning out the garbage we hope that it will impact them and they'll thin about not littering out here,” said Chantelle Adams, Education Outreach Coordinator for the Beaver River Watershed Alliance.
The afternoon also opened up the opportunity for a broader conversation on keeping the planet healthy and looked after.
“It's become an annual event for us. Our students look forward to it and our staff look forward to it and it's the way we kick off our campaign for bringing awareness of stewardship for our students,” said Notre Dame principal Pamela Guilbault. “What we really push for our students is that we, as a Catholic school, we are stewards of the environment. We're given the responsibility of caring for the earth so this is the way that we kick that campaign off.”
Giving the students a first hand look at the impacts of littering and what it does to the environment is important to getting the younger generation to stop littering.
“Liter along the shoreline impacts all kinds of wildlife. It impacts the health of our ecosystem and also just for recreational value for us who want to use this area it's a very nice park so we want to keep it looking beautiful,” added Adams.
The cleaning of the Jessie Lake shoreline is something that Notre Dame High School really takes pride in.
“What happens here is we're responsible for our school yard but we also take responsibility for the Jessie Lake area as well. We take that responsibility quite seriously and so our students go out and pick up the litter there probably three or four times a year,” said Guilbault. “We are completely appreciative of that area as a clean recreational area, not only for our enjoyment but for the enjoyment of all of the residents in Bonnyville. It's a beautiful area and we think that everybody should be able to enjoy it and if we can pitch in and do our part then we are happy to do that.”
The students and volunteers were able to collect around 15 bags of garbage including a burnt couch.
