Thu, May 11 7:07pm
A Huge THANK YOU to the PS 107 Community for taking part last Saturday in the 12th Annual Riverkeeper Sweep - a day of service for a beach clean-up at Valentino Park in Red Hook. PS 107 showed up and cleaned up for a successful sweep!
Thank you to the community and volunteers: Riverkeeper for leading, the Outdoor Service Guides 651 Greenwood Brooklyn Scout Troop for being great partners, NYC Parks for support throughout, Partnershi
Valentino Park Beach BEFORE the Sweep
Valentino Park Beach Getting Cleaned Up!
The Sweep Team, With the Collected Trash
Our sweepers went above and beyond, as one of a small group of sites who take part in a Comprehensive Data Collection (CDCI.) The CDCI is an ongoing Riverkeeper Sweep project that provides a detailed look at the type of trash found in the Hudson and its tributaries. The data informs Riverkeeper’s legislative advocacy and education campaigns year-round and it is provided to the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies for their annual Data Jam, in which students in the Hudson Valley are challenged to creatively represent the Hudson through data visualizations. Your diligent recording of this data resulted in the sobering and impressive 2,687 items collected, including a mattress, a coconut, a plastic egg, a car part, many flossers and the following top five:
1. Plastic Bottle Caps (335)
2. Food Wrappers (270)
3. Cigarette Butts (240)
4. Straws/Stirrers (225)
5. Plastic Beverage Bottles (90)
There was also a very special visit by our very own Donna Bruno, PS 107's Secretary. She made the event even more special by bringing along the mother and aunt of Louis Valentino, Jr. that the park is named after, and who was a FDNY Firefighter who lost his life while searching for wounded firefighters in a three-alarm blaze. We were all honored to meet his mother, Mrs. Phyllis Valentino, and aunt, Mrs. Linda Masi, and hear all about their memories of Mr. Valentino. Along with Ms. Donna they regaled wonderful stories of growing up around the area of Valentino Park.
PS 107 students and secretary Donna Bruno,
with the mother of Louis Valentino Jr, Mrs, Phyllis Valentino, and aunt Mrs. Linda Masi
We also want to thank Katie Leung and Finn Clarke from Riverkeeper for the support and guidance and Finn for coming out to our site and not only helping with set up, but also for sticking around to help with the beach clean up too.
And that is not all! We got to check out the Billion Oyster Project (BOP) stations at Valentino Pier that belong to the scouts and see the future home of PS 107’s oysters.
All the kids and the rest of our volunteers worked really hard, and even though we think a clean up crew may have come through a week before us, we still managed to really pile up that trash. Great job everyone! Let’s keep our waterways and community clean!
Joanna Lumbang-Dowding and Laura Gibson-Rimer
If you would like to know more about Riverkeeper and the River Sweeps, check out this link below:
If you would like to know more about the data that the team recorded at this site, please feel free to reach out to Laura Gibson-Rimer at bella.gibson@gmail.com.