CARE for the Cape & Islands partnered with AmeriCorps Cape Cod and Center for Coastal Studies to organize a Cape- wide MLK Day Beach Cleanup. The MLk Day of service is a part of United We Serve, the President’s national call to service initiative. It calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing problems. The MLK Day of Service empowers individuals, strengthens communities, bridges barriers, creates solutions to social problems, and moves us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a “Beloved Community.”

Volunteers focused their efforts on cleaning 8 beaches reaching from Sandwich all the way to Provincetown. The beaches that were cleaned are Herring Cove ( Provincetown, MA), Race Point Beach ( Provincetown, MA), Breakwater Beach ( Wellfleet, MA) , Duck Harbor ( Wellfleet, MA), Cold Storage Beach ( Dennis, MA), Nauset Beach ( Orleans, MA), Coast Guard Beach ( Eastham , MA) and Springhill Beach ( Sandwich, MA).  Participants spent two hours at each individual beach and over 100 volunteers attended the event.

 

Each beach had educational signage discussing micro-plastics and their catastrophic impact on the worlds oceans. The Take Care Cape Cod messaging was used to depict a water bottle breaking down into smaller pieces, with the caption ” Plastic is Forever”.  Alongside this was a quote from Dr. King saying ” We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but we have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

 

In total over 1,118.82 pounds of waste were removed from all 8 beaches across the Cape. Volunteers had a great time cleaning the beaches and honoring Dr. King’s life.