Refresh, Renew, Refocus was the theme for the 28th Annual Georgia Recycling Coalition Conference, on Sept. 15.
I was able to gather a lot of good information on recycling issues we face worldwide. I met and networked with fellow conference goers, spend time with some Keep Georgia Beautiful Foundation affiliates, discovered some different resources, and learned some new things.
The Georgia Recycling Coalition mission is to complement and coordinate activities relative to recycling, to foster communications among professionals, organizations, government agencies and individuals, and to promote and enhance waste reduction and recycling programs throughout the state of Georgia. The conference topics were very interesting and included subjects like battery, glass, and plastic recycling process, composting, and community recycling. I cannot wait to implement some of the ideas I learned into the Keep Liberty Beautiful program, so we can Refresh, Renew, and Refocus.
Last week Keep Liberty Beautiful was asked to participate in two Liberty County schools, Lyman Hall Elementary and Liberty Elementary STEM events.
We help the students make seed balls, while discussing what it takes for plants to grows. Plants are all around us, and they play an important part in our survival. The children knew what it took to make plants grow. The subject must have been a part of a lesson they just completed, because they all said “Plants need dirt, water, sun, air, space, and time to grow!
It was a lot of fun and you can see some of the wonderful photos on Keep Liberty Beautiful Face Book page. To learn more about What Makes Plants Grow you can look on the website: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/children/how-plants-grow.htm.
On Friday, Sept. 27, Keep Liberty Beautiful was honor and grateful to be a guest of Yamaha at the Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Fifth Annual A Fishy Affair Gala held at the Landings Plantation Club. According to their website, Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Georgia is one of the largest near-shore “live-bottom” reefs of the southeastern United States. It is just one of 14 marine protected areas that make up the National Marine Sanctuary System and is governed by the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary is currently the only protected natural reef area on the continental shelf off the Georgia coast and one of only a few natural marine protected areas in the ocean between Cape Hatteras, NC and Cape Canaveral, FL. The approximately 22 square mile sanctuary (about 14,000 acres) of Gray’s Reef is just a small part of the U.S. territorial Atlantic Ocean, yet its value as a natural marine habitat is recognized nationally and internationally. The event was amazing and brought awareness to issues like litter that comes from the land in to the water, how to protect our fish and water supply, and the importance of conducting cleanups.
One cleanup that I love doing every year is the Keep Liberty Beautiful Beach Sweep on St. Catherines Island.
KLB Board member, Dave Sapp, does a great job every year getting us boat captains for this event. Every year we get to partner with some wonderful organizations and this year was no different. We had volunteers from the Ford Plantation Naturalist, Clean Coast, Bradwell Beta Club, and our own local Liberty County volunteers. KLB, along with our Chairman Willa Lewis, took 65 volunteers to St. Catherines Island and they collected a total of 480lbs of debris.
St. Catherines Island is one of the Golden Isles on the coast of Georgia, and is 20 miles south of Savannah in Liberty County. The island is 10 miles long and from one to three miles wide, located between St. Catherine’s Sound and Sapelo Sound. More than half of its 14,640 acres are tidal marsh and wetlands. About half of it is salt marshes, about a quarter is wooded, and it has a beach that is covered with visitors on any given day. It is owned by the Saint Catherines Island Foundation and is not open to the public, aside from the beach below the high water line.
We thank all the volunteers for their support, especially the boat captains. St Catherines Island is cleaner, and more beautiful because of your efforts.
If you would like to be involved, with Keep Liberty Beautiful events contact us by email klcb@libertycountyga.com or call (912) 880-4888.
You can also go to our website keeplibertybeautiful.org for more information. Our next upcoming event is Rivers Alive October 26, 2019, and you can sign up at www.signupgenius.com, search for klcb@libertycountyga.com.