Each year Milwaukee Riverkeeper hosts the Spring Cleanup event throughout the greater Milwaukee area. The organization helps organize and facilitate land and river cleanups, providing supplies and trash removal at site locations. This year, at Purevant Living, we decided to adopt a section of the Menomonee River in downtown Milwaukee near the Harley-Davidson Museum, via their Adopt-A-River Program. In an effort to connect the community to the local waterways,
this program allows a group or individual to select a section of a river to adopt, to help maintain and keep trash-free throughout the year. This could include an on land cleanup effort or trash collection from kayaks and boats within the river. You can see the lengthy list of adopters here and even signup!
For the spring cleanup, we organized a team of volunteers with our group, Women Who Kayak, and community members that wanted to join the paddle cleanup. Scouring the shoreline for three hours, our group was able to remove many bags of trash floating in the water and in areas only accessible by boat. The group collected several tires, a large car part, plastic bags and cups, small toys, and many plastic bottles and caps.
We started volunteering with Milwaukee Riverkeeper back in 2019 to keep our waterways and environment clean. Also by creating the organization Women Who Kayak, we aim to provide knowledge, tips, and connections to help members paddle safely, while collaborating with organizations that champion environmental awareness and events.