Three student organizations at Grand Valley State University will join together on Saturday to clean up a local beach.

The Association of Student Geographers, the Student Environmental Coalition and the Soil and Water Conservation Society are all teaming up for the Adopt-A-Beach clean-up event sponsored by the Alliance for The Great Lakes.

The three student organizations, along with other groups, will focus on a beach called Kirk Park along Lake Michigan south of Grand Haven. The group will work from 9 a.m. to noon.

SEC President Kathleen Sexton highlighted some of the main goals of the group effort.

“During the beach clean up we will be collaborating with members of the Association of Student Geographers and the Soil and Water Conservation Society to support the Alliance of the Great Lakes by cleaning up trash, weeds and anything else that doesn’t belong on the Lake Michigan shoreline,” she said.

SEC spreads awareness of the benefits of sustainable living and tries to get people together who share interests in environmental awareness. Sexton believes that events such as the beach clean up are very important in the fight for environmental awareness

“I’m hoping this event will give people an interest in improving, protecting and preserving the health of the beaches along Lake Michigan,” she said. “After all, the Great Lakes are debatably Michigan’s most important resource.”

SWCS President Jessica Schwartz and the rest of the SWCS team also hope to improve Kirk Park.

“We hope to make the beach a cleaner and more environmentally-safe place for people to go and swim,” she said.

SWCS is a volunteer-based organization that seeks to get more students involved with environmental volunteer work. Similar to Sexton, Schwartz thinks this event is important for the environment. She said she has seen many beaches in Michigan that have had trash thrown around and that have been in bad shape.

“People leave trash all over the place, and after a while it gets very disgusting,” she said. “If people don’t pick up their trash, then it is our responsibility to pick it up for them and lower our human footprint on the beaches.”

ASG brings together geography students to do projects and attend conferences that will let them gain experience that will help them in their professional lives.

ASG President Amanda Moore said she thinks that the Adopt-A-Beach event is a good way to help the environment.

“We really need to be focusing on our environment and how we are treating it,” she said. “The Great Lakes are one of our most precious resources here in Michigan and honestly in the entire world.”

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