Panther Creek HS Led Cleanup a Success

_RK_9078 CJL Panther High 4-26-2014 2014

In early April, Tuscan Harrington, a student at Panther Creek High School in Cary, approached Clean Jordan Lake with his idea for a class project on the application of rhetoric skills to entice folks to volunteer for a nonprofit cause.  Tuscan was already familiar with our trash cleanups, having accompanied his Dad in a GlaxoSmithKline community service day and a couple of impromptu family organized cleanups while visiting the lake shoreline. Tuscan and other classmates helped to develop the description of the cleanup for posting on social media,  surveyed the shoreline cleanup routes, selected the most unique Trash Treasure Hunt items, got gift certificates as prizes and recruited others at Panther Creek High to volunteer.

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The cleanup took place on April 26th on the east side of the lake, just north of the spillway.  By just counting the 25 volunteers who each took 4 hours of their time to participate, the students exceeded the requirement set by their rhetoric teacher for 96 hours of volunteerism.  The volunteer hours were far higher if including the time spent to organize the event.

Volunteers removed 60 bags of trash and three tires.   This same stretch of shoreline had been completely cleared of trash last October. But since then, five heavy rainfall periods flushed more trash off the 1,400 sq. mi. in the Haw River watershed, raised the lake level from two to eight ft. and reformed the old "trash line" about 50 ft. back into the woods.

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Two volunteers came with boats and crew members to haul the trash across the lake to a dumpster.

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All of the Trash Treasure Hunt items were found and redeemed for gift certificates from PDQ and from Great Outdoor Provision Company of Chapel Hill.

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There was a contest as well for the weirdest items.  No one could explain the origin of a very attractively colored bowling ball uncovered by Tuscan.

_RK_9164 CJL Panther High 4-26-2014 2014