653 cigarette butts, 57 plastic wrappers, 4 spoons and a plastic dinosaur toy were among the approximately 800 items that members from the Rotary Club of San Francisco, family, and friends picked up on the morning of Saturday, October 19, 2019, during our beach clean-up at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park. David McGuire, Executive Director of Shark Stewards, hosted our group.
We learned about the health of the San Francisco Bay, the local sharks who inhabit Aquatic Park, and the improvements to the Bay’s ecosystem in recent years. The Shark Stewards advocate for sharks worldwide. Local efforts include hosting Aquatic Park clean-ups and their work with Francisco Middle School students. Here is a short film that the students made about their experiences doing beach clean-ups with Aquatic Park Stewards.
T
hanks to the support of the San Francisco Rotary Foundation and our Club, we were able to remove hundreds of pieces of toxic plastic from the beach and the Bay and help support Shark Stewards' work with Francisco Middle School. Participants included president Casey and his daughters; Stephanie and Eric Schmautz and their daughters; Rhonda, Bill, and Blake Poppen; Rachel Kantosky, Clif Thomas, Diane Walton, Ed Shenkan, and Herman Jones, president of the Rotary Club of San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf for coming out on a Saturday morning to help with the clean-up.