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Thursday, March 26, 2009

Family Fun Magazine: Volunteer Opportunities

Family Fun: Four Ideas for Volunteering

by Melissa Gaskill

Read the whole article HERE

#2 BEAUTIFY OUR BEACHES

What Needs To Be Done

Who has fun on vacation when the beach is covered with trash? No one -- so national organizations need volunteers all year-round to clean up our shores.

How Families Can Help

Ocean Conservancy sponsors the International Coastal Cleanup event on the third Saturday of September. In 2007, some 378,000 volunteers worldwide collected 6 million pounds of garbage.

California marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols took daughters, Grayce, age 7, and Julia, 4, to a cleanup event in Big Sur. "The girls are big on cleaning the beaches," Nichols said. "They'll tell you, 'The trash goes down to the ocean, the animals eat it and get sick.' " During the cleanup, the family also helped rescue a pelican with a hurt wing. 800-519-1541, oceanconservancy.org

Families vacationing in Maui any time can grab a beach cleanup kit from Hawaii's Pacific Whale Foundation, complete with directions to a local beach, rubber gloves, trash bags, and instructions for disposing of the litter. 800-942-5311, pacificwhale.org