On Saturday, April 19, the annual cleanup of Bayport Beach and Homan’s Creek was held, spearheaded by the Bayport Civic Association and BBP Junior Civic.

Save the Great South Bay developed the Creek Defender program to keep creeks—the arteries of freshwater to the Great South Bay—clean and free-flowing.

“Keeping them flowing freely is essential to improving water quality in the bay,” said Robin Silvestri, president of Save the Great South Bay.”

“We had our best turnout ever this year in our sixth annual cleanup. It is refreshing to see the volunteerism and awareness of the importance of keeping our waterways clean.  We were able to pick up over 500 pounds of junk this year, but our goal is not to find any in future years,” said Bob Draffin, president of the Bayport Civic Association.

Alyssa Ayerle, BBP Jr Civic president, said, “It was amazing to see so many people, some not even from our community, come together in order to clean up our beach and foster community engagement while doing so.”

“Our Creek Defender cleanups are on track to engage over 1,000 volunteers this year. (Sadly), we are also on track to pick up more than 10,000 pounds of debris from the creeks,” said Silvestri.