PNW beachcombers clean up coast | By Ronda Cordill and Steve Meacham
Methodists from the PNW Conference head out to South Beach to care for God’s Creation.
Been to the beach lately?
Since I have spent most of my life close to the coast, I have great memories of beach time. Thursday, July 5, was a glorious day at South Beach near Grayland, Wash. About eight persons, mostly United Methodists, of all ages had gathered that day, not to play in the sand and saltwater, but to do beach clean-up.
We were not sure what we would find, but had decided that even if there was a ton of tsunami debris, we would pick up what we could. We each took a hefty garbage bag and set out. We stretched ourselves out between the high water mark and the grassy dunes then began the trek south on the beach. It was slow going. We were taken aback by the amount of July 4th debris, but remained undaunted.
Only two weeks earlier a group had combed the same area – so the amount of pop cans and plastic bottles was not as bad as expected. But how many rockets, fountains, parachutes, tanks and spinners does someone need to celebrate July 4th? What worried me the most were the plastic rocket tips that were just the right size for a bird to eat, along with the parachutes tangled with the seaweed amidst the hundreds of pieces of Styrofoam. At the end of combing for five hours, we had filled the back end of a State Park’s pickup truck. It was filled mostly with heavy garbage bags, but also larger items like cables, construction wood and a large plastic container that had floated all the way from India.
We were a bit stunned that we had barely cleaned a mile of the beautiful Washington coastline, yet we each made the determination to return again, this time with friends. If you would like to help set up a day of beachcombing with your local church group, contact Steve Meacham and Ronda Cordill. Choose a day; we’ll get the beach.
Ronda Cordill and Steve Meacham serve as members of UMVIM for the PNWUMC.
Download the full issue of Channels 55, August 2012 here.
