During the beach clean-up, I spent most of my time walking the shoreline picking up trash, separating recyclables, and helping bag everything up. A few of us also worked together to pull out larger debris like tangled fishing line and pieces of plastic that were stuck in the sand. What stood out to me was how naturally people worked together. No one really had to be told what to do—everyone just stepped in where needed. If something was difficult, like removing buried trash, we talked it through and figured it out as a group. It felt really efficient without being overly structured. This experience connected with my values, especially around responsibility and doing your part. I’m interested in business and leadership, and it reminded me how important teamwork and communication are in getting things done. I also learned that the organization’s mission isn’t just about cleaning up, it’s about protecting the environment and getting people involved in their community. Seeing the immediate difference we made was honestly pretty motivating. Overall, it made me think about leadership in a different way. Good leaders aren’t just giving directions,they’re involved, helping out, and working alongside their team. That’s something I’d want to carry into my future career.
My friend and I went to John Mecerner Pier for the beach clean-up. There were lots of supplies for all of the volunteers. The club members were very nice and told us where to go and when to start heading back. I would definitely recommend it if you love the beach and keeping it beautiful.
On March 14th, me and my two friends attended one of numerous beach cleanups set up by, UNCW Plastic Ocean Project. It was at 10 that morning and we were given trash "grabbers" after we signed in to use for our beach walk. We decided to walk north before everyone else to be as efficient as possible. It was a beautiful morning and a great day to walk on the beach. There was probably around 20 people and majority went to the south end. Honesty, there was not a lot of trash to be picked up. In total, the group picked up 9.78 lbs of trash and everyone got back on time. They did a great job setting it up and everyone made an impact on the trash that was collected. Our strategy was to spread out and walk parallel to each other to cover the most ground to maximize our collection of trash, but then again there was minimal trash on the beach, which is a great sign. This experience did affect my passions because I grew up at the beach and I like seeing people working together and keep our beaches clean. This experience could shape my thinking about my future in business by working as a team to execute a common goal and improving the environment of a public setting like the beach.
During this experience, I participated in a beach cleanup on Wrightsville beach where I helped collect trash and other kinds of waste we found along the shoreline. I worked ion a team with a couple friends, and joined with others to cover different sections of the beach efficiently. This experience showed me how smaller individual efforts can contribute and make a larger environmental impact.
One of the most notable aspects was the efficiency and teamwork. We quickly organized ourselves into teams, identified which areas needed the most attention, created a plan to maximize our time and effort, and handled problems as they arose. There was a strong sense of shared responsibility, and people were willing to step in wherever needed to keep the cleanup moving smoothly.
This experience connected closely to my values of having a nice clean beach to enjoy as well as community involvement. I have an interest in sustainability, and participating in a hands-on effort reinforced this. I also learned more about the organization’s mission to preserve the local coastline and raise awareness about pollution’s long-term effects.
Overall, this experience was enjoyable, and reminded me about the importance of community involvement especially when working toward meaningful, common goals.
I had a good time going to the beach with so many other people who wanted to help keep it clean.
I did struggle to find any trash so maybe next time we could look for places with more complaints about trash
This experience was definitely a great experience, especially being a part of a beach school like the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Cleaning up the beach was such an honor because it is something the student body enjoys so much and keeping it clean provides an even better experience. I took part in walking the dune line while cleaning up any trash or left over garbage that had made its way into the dunes at Wrightsville Beach. The people working the event were happy to cover both ends of the beach to provide the best cleaning the group could. Overall the group was able to clean up almost 10lbs as a whole which amazing to think about that much garbage being removed from the coastline. This experience help confirm my values of service and action to better the world whether that be cleaning up the coastline or offering my services to whatever needs to be helped. From this experience, I have learned the importance of community here at UNCW and how much we can do if we work together. I loved taking action and I hope I can take this experience into my future career.