Written by Lindsay Watts, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Over the weekend, the Coastal Virginia Sierra Club joined The Surfrider Foundation for a Halloween-themed cleanup at the oceanfront! 

While many of our volunteers came dressed as Sierra Club Volunteers, the costumes were a fun touch. Our hosts from The Surfrider Foundation, Victor Enriquez and Cody Hales, dressed festively for the cleanup as a fish and plastic bags.

Team Sierra Club's 10 volunteers combined to collect a total of 99.2 POUNDS of trash! All of the volunteers at the event collected a grand total of 251 pounds of trash that could have otherwise made its way into our oceans. We are so thankful to get to be part of such a successful event!

We had prizes for our volunteers as well! Rose Haywood won a beautiful reusable water bottle, courtesy of The Surfrider Foundation, for collecting the most trash individually with 28.6 pounds! We also held a giveaway for the person who guessed closest to the total amount of trash Team Sierra Club would pick up to win a 2027 Sierra Club wall calendar, both onsite and online. Our onsite winner was Josh Dewar, who had the closest guess with 83.2 pounds. Jeff Staples won our online giveaway with a guess of 83.5 pounds.

We are so grateful for our partnership with The Surfrider Foundation and to Smartmouth Brewing for letting us use their parking lot as a base. And a HUGE THANK YOU to all of our volunteers who show up and help us make a difference!

We will be joining The Surfrider Foundation again in November for a Turkey Trot cleanup at Parlor Doughnuts! MORE INFORMATION TO COME!