I love to volunteer and I love to be outside, and those two things
coincide a lot in Oregon. Every year we pick a volunteer activity for
Earth Day, and we also did the SOLV Spring Beach Cleanup this year!

I
wasn’t ever really a big fan of the beach, growing up along the Jersey
Shore. There was sand and water, and that was kind of boring I
guess.(not to mention me + sun = OW) But then I moved to Oregon and was
entranced by the treacherous, rocky, geologically amazing coastline. I
also loved the fact that, for the most part, there wasn’t anybody out
there. It was so peaceful, or as much as a violent ocean against a
volcanic coast can be! I felt like I needed to give something back, so
this March I volunteered for my first Beach Cleanup. Each year,
thousands of volunteers comb the Oregon coast for industrial and
household waste that washes up on shore. We chose a fairly small stretch
of beach at Ona Beach State Park and went to work.