A group of Sailors from NAS Patuxent River joined high school and community volunteers for a Friends of St. Clements Bay cleanup effort at Newtowne Neck State Park in Leonardtown April 8.
Sailors arrived around 8:30 a.m. and worked past noon cutting and removing rusted wire fencing and trash to help clean up a 4-acre area of the park that has been designated as a future nature walk.
“They supplied work gloves and shears for us to cut the old wire fencing, which was actually growing into the trees in some places,” explained Gas Turbine Systems Technician (Mechanical) 2nd Class Karrie Stephens, assistant command duty officer for Pax River. “We’d think we were done and then we’d walk further and find more fencing to remove.”
In addition to clearing the fencing, the volunteers picked up other pieces of large debris like discarded farm equipment, metal drums, tires, and a box spring, totaling an estimated 30 yards of scrap metal which was then loaded into a dumpster and taken away.
The Friends of St. Clements Bay – a community of neighbors working together to preserve and restore local watersheds whose activities include cleanup days, educational events, tree plantings, school partnerships and a campaign to bring oysters back to Breton Bay – provided the volunteers with lunch and plenty of water.
“I enjoyed it,” Stephens said. “I like working with my hands, it was good to get outside, and I liked doing something to help out in the community.”
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Volunteers from Naval Air Station Patuxent River remove rusted fencing and trash during a community relations project at Newtowne Neck State Park in southern Maryland. The Sailors joined other volunteers from around the community to help clean up a 4-acre area of the park that has been designated as a future nature walk.
