Volunteering On Vacation - A Great Feeling

Our hats off to Sheila at govisithawaii.com for suggesting “Volunteering On Vacation.”

Beach Clean-up KitWe enjoy visiting Maui so much, that it seemed like time to “give something back.” We looked around a little and found Pacific Whale Foundation’s “Volunteering On Vacation” program. As Brook, the manager of the program explained, “Pacific Whale Foundation helps provide volunteers for a number of other Maui organizations.” These organizations in turn work to protect Maui’s fragile ecosystem, cultural sites and marine life.

We chose the simplest project, a “beach cleanup.” They provided a large trash bag, a pair of gloves and a sheet to record what’s found. We got to pick the beach.

Full Trash BagWe chose a small section of Ma’alaea Beach. Here’s what we cleaned up in a 150 foot section of beach:

  • 32 cigarette butts.
  • 65 Pieces of plastic
  • 1 Piece of netting
  • 6 Pieces of fishing line or gear
  • 2 Pieces of rope
  • 1 Syringe with needle attached
  • 1 Condom
  • 2 Metal beverage cans
  • 10 Glass beverage bottles
  • 2 Pieces of styrofoam
  • 2 Six pack rings
  • 22 Plastic bags
  • And more paper and fast food cups and wrappers than we could count.

We could have easily filled another bag in this same spot.

Volunteering On Vacation - Tee ShirtFor our efforts Pacific Whale Foundation gave us two really cool tee-shirts and we got the satisfaction of knowing we’d done a little bit to help clean-up paradise.

Has anyone else tried “Volunteering On Vacation?” Why not tell us about your experience?

6 Responses to “Volunteering On Vacation - A Great Feeling”

  1. Mucho kudos for taking your vacation time to make a difference!

  2. […] trash that they cleaned up in such a small area (150 foot section) was shocking.  Head over to David’s blog post to read the details.  Mucho kudos to […]

  3. Wow! That is one of the nicest things I can think of — to be on vacation and extend a helping hand to clean up after people who don’t think before they just dump stuff. I’m on Oahu and I’m sure we must have a program similar to this… but I have to check into it.

    Good job! I’m impressed!

  4. Thank you Evelyn,

    I think you hit the nail on the head, people just don’t think. If more people would follow the philosophy of “carry it in, carry it out” the world would be a much cleaner place.

    David

  5. […] Several excellent Maui volunteer opportunities to help the environment. Some assignments can involve some unique chances to learn about Hawaii’s culture and history. Other’s are as simple as cleaning up a beach. (Kudos again to David for volunteering his time on Maui.) […]

  6. […] January we posted an article on Pacific Whale Foundation’s “Volunteering on Vacation” program. This program […]

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