ARKANSAS, USA — During the summer holidays, many people celebrate on the water by boating and swimming, and visitors don’t always leave the lakes and rivers the way they found them.
One local group of volunteers is working during the holiday to keep trash out of the water, and they say the solution is simple.
This Labor Day marks one year of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership’s (IRWP) “Kicking Trash” Labor Day cleanup.
The nonprofit hosts outreach days on several major summer holidays to encourage people visiting the river to be good stewards.
As families arrived to swim in the Illinois River, the volunteers handed out cookies, along with all the resources people needed to dispose of their trash: trash bags and a dumpster to put them in.
Volunteers Jerrid Gelinas, Brian Hodges, and Emily Alkema spent their Labor Day weekend helping with cleanup at the Chamber Springs Access Point in Siloam Springs.
Gelinas, Director of Recreation Stewardship with IRWP, says something as simple as handing someone a trash bag makes a difference in protecting the river.
“Most families just didn’t have anywhere to put their trash and they didn't know better. And so just giving them the resources and telling them where to put it is a game changer. There's a lot of families that look at us that are really educated by such a simple act of giving the resources to take care of the access," Gelinas said.
The IRWP says its goal is to inspire good stewardship at all lakes and rivers year-round.
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