• Article Photo. The team poses together in front of the garbage they’ve helped collect from the river.
    The team poses together in front of the garbage they’ve helped collect from the river.
  • Article Photo. Trey Calloway assists an ASB volunteer with a tire lodged in the ground.
    Trey Calloway assists an ASB volunteer with a tire lodged in the ground.

By: Anthony Chin and Corey Milligan

 

To start off their first project together, Maple 7 was sent to Memphis, Tennessee to work with Living Lands & Waters for two weeks, which is a non-profit organization that focuses on cleaning up America’s rivers. They particularly focus on the Mississippi River that runs from Lake Itasca, MN and drops out into the Gulf of Mexico through the Louisiana delta.

 

During this two-week span, Maple 7 joined up with volunteering college students for the Alternative Spring Break hosted by LL&W and various colleges across the Midwest. In that time, an estimated 90,000 pounds of trash was collected from the shorelines and filled the entire garbage barge. The team both filled and unloaded 49 boatloads in the first week, and 11 boatloads in the second week! Maple 7 worked with 156 volunteers along with the barge crew. Everyone on the team really enjoyed their project in Memphis, TN and got to know the volunteers and the crew in those two weeks.

 

The founder and president of LL&W is Chad Pregracke, who started the organization in 1998 after years of seeing the garbage lining the Mississippi River just mere meters away from his family’s home and decided to do something about it.