Local students and their science teachers gathered at the San Benito County River on Saturday to take part in the California Coastal Clean Up.
The group included teachers Susan Bessette, Chip Gauvreaux, Jim Ostdick, and college student Ashlee Marcum as the leads for a group of 30 student volunteers as well as parents.
Though San Benito County is inland from the coast, the San Benito River connects to other waterways that eventually empty into the Monterey Bay. This year marks the seventh consecutive year Hollister youth groups have participated in the statewide effort to curtail the amount of waste moving toward the ocean, said Ostdick, in an email.
The students gathered beneath the Nash Road Bridge where people have dumped trash over the rails and homeless citizens have been camping in the riverbed, Ostdick said.
The student volunteers, who were mostly in fourth and fifth grade, removed about 650 pounds of garbage during the two hour event.
“All of this trash has built up just in the past six months,” said Ostdick, who regularly led student clean ups as the advisor of the Outdoor Club. “The Outdoor Club from the high school cleaned this same area last winter. We hope that the students’ efforts to model responsible stewardship of our natural resources will rub off on the small percentage of adults in our county who don’t seem to get it.”
He said he was hopeful the construction of the regional park near the high school and the first link of the river parkway through town will create more civic pride.
“The kids’ enthusiasm is inspirational and their parents should be commended for setting such a great example,” he said.
Bessette, who won the 2011-12 Crystal Apple Award is a teacher at the Accelerated Achievement Academy. Gauvreaux is a San Benito High School biology teacher and Ostdick is a Sacred Heart Parish School junior high science teacher as well as a former science teacher at San Benito High School. The trio is creating a network of student volunteer groups to address the problems of illegal dumping in the riverbed and littering at local parks, schools and neighborhoods.
Interested students, parents and educators are encouraged to contact the teachers at their respective schools to take part in future community service events.
