The Tribune

THE Lyford Cay International School community came together on Saturday, February 2 to participate in a school-wide beach clean up at Jaws Beach in the Clifton Heritage National Park.

More than 175 students, parents, staff and community members braved the chilly weather to help remove garbage from the local beach.

“We all use this beach,” said LCIS principal Stacey Bobo, “so we should all pitch in to keep it clean.” The beach, the closest public beach to LCIS, is used often by students of the school.

“Our students come here for GGYA participation, we bring students here to conduct environmental experiments for school and our LCIS families use the beach as a relaxing gathering place on the weekend,” said Helene Dejong, community service co-ordinator and organiser of the event.

The school worked with the Clifton Heritage National Park to not only clean the beach, but also raise awareness within the community about the importance of keeping our beaches clean.

Gregory Munnings, public relations, sales and marketing officer for the Clifton Heritage National Park, was delighted with the partnership.

“We are happy that LCIS has taken an interest in Jaws Beach. Everyone who came out to help was so motivated to clean our beach. It has made a real impact and I look forward to working with the school again as we continue to maintain the beach and the surrounding area, as well as assist us in educating our visitors why we need to do it,” he said.

Volunteers removed a 20 foot dumpster-load of garbage from the beach and students from the school repainted the garbage cans located along the shoreline.

“I hope people use the garbage cans next time they come to the beach,” said Ecology Club member and senior student, Alicia Dejong. “If everyone used the garbage cans or took their garbage home with them then we would never have to do beach cleanups.”

The LCIS Ecology Club is currently working to achieve bronze status as a green flag school.

“We are also working to conserve energy on our campus and eliminate garbage on our own campus,” said Alicia.

LCIS volunteers were joined by members of the YME (Young Marine Explorers) led by Nikita Shiel-Rolle.

“It was great to bring our two organisations together,” said Ms Shiel-Rolle.

YME is a non-profit environmental organisation committed to providing transformational educational experiences to young Bahamians.

“It is wonderful to see a community rally around a cause as important as cleaning and maintaining our beaches – and even better that it was my old school!”

The PTA provided refreshments for the busy volunteers afterwards and were mindful of being environmentally friendly.

“We asked volunteers to bring their own water bottles so we could eliminate the need for individual plastic bottles or plastic cups,” said PTA vice president Chrissy Hennessey.

“What is the point in creating more garbage when garbage is what we are trying to get rid of?”

Bahamas Waste also offered their support by providing a dumpster to collect the garbage, porta pottys and a hand washing station.

“It was a great experience for all of us,” said Ms Bobo. “We worked as a community, we learned about our environment, we cleaned a beach and we had a great time. We will definitely do this again.”