Star Island staff spend a lot of time focusing on Star Island, and the summer programs that come back year after year. But we also think it’s important to focus on the mainland. For example, on Wednesday, March 25, as part of our bi-annual retreat series, we volunteered our time for a beach clean up. Organzied by our friends at the Blue Ocean Society, the beach clean up was a great way to practice our values with the mainland community, and broadens the scope of our sustainabiliy efforts through the Green Gosport Initiative. Our work to make Star Island a greener, more sustainable place can only get better if we practice what we talk about with others.

Our clean up focused on the “Drowned Forrest” beach near Odiorne’s Point in Rye, NH with the Isles of Shoals just off on the horizon. During this clean up our staff collected a little over 37 lbs of debris which included washed up nets, fishing gear, rope, plastic bags, styrofoam, and cigarette butts. As we picked up trash, we also recorded what we were picking up. The data will then go to state and federal agencies for informational purposes. We appreciated the time to be outdoors, and helping a cause we feel strongly about. Here are some snapshots from our afternoon:

Our IT Manager, Warren Simard, records what debris he has picked up.

CEJoe (left) goes to dispose of some debris while Food Service Manager John Bynum (center), and Director of Development Pam Smith (right) record data.

Facilities Director & Island Manager Jack Farrell searches for debris.

The team searches the beach for washed up debris.

After collecting debris from the beach, we consolidate all of it into garbage bags.

What’s CEO Joe Watts doing in this last picture? After weighing himself, Joe weighs himself plus a bag of collected debris to measure how much we gathered from the beach.