The 38th annual bayfront cleanup that occurred Saturday, September 17th, 2022 was a strong success, with many students from the San Mateo High School Union district and even middle schools, like Saint Matthews and Borel Middle School, joining in the cleanup. San Mateo High School actually had the largest number of students out of all the schools that participated in the cleanup!
Ms. Kane, the career center assistant and coordinator at San Mateo High School, commented that she “wishes this cleanup will bring the Bearcat community together, clean up the area to make it feel safer again, and have some fun.” And that is exactly what happened. Numerous kids came out on a Saturday morning to help out the environment and community. Surprisingly, there was not that much trash on the beach, but there was still a large abundance of bottles, broken glass, beer cans, take-out trays, cigarette butts, and more.
Each student had to sign in with the supervisor, Ms. Kane, before they started picking up trash, and sign out when they were about to leave. The whole event lasted about four and a half hours, with breaks included. Each kid was given a blue bucket and a pair of latex gloves and some received a trash picker. At around 11:30 A.M., free lunch for all was handed out. They supplied each of the volunteers with a burger, watermelon, and a bag of chips. They even had vegetarian burgers and ice cream.
To make it more fun and competitive for the volunteers, the organizer set up a friendly competition. The categories included most unusual find, most useful find, most cigarette butts, best team effort, and a couple more categories. Hannah Qutteineh, a freshman at San Mateo High School, said “the most unusual thing I found was a tent playhouse.”
When they passed out the food, the helpers gave each of the volunteers a few raffle tickets, and at the end of lunch there was a raffle held for a chance to win small but useful items.
This service project was enjoyable, interactive, and helpful for our community. A good deal of students from all around the district came out to help save the animals in the bay affected by this garbage. This annual event is a beneficial chance to get volunteer hours if students do not get many chances to volunteer or even hear about volunteer opportunities.