CRESTVIEW — Having helped clean a beach themselves, Girl Scouts in Crestview Troop 676 encourage other organizations to help tidy Okaloosa County's top tourist attraction.
“As part of the Girl Scout Law, the girls promise to ‘make the world a better place,’ and that is what they were trying to accomplish" Aug. 1, parent volunteer Amanda Converse said.
Cleanup at the Gulf Island National Seashore’s Okaloosa Area was organized through the Emerald Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, which provided trash bags and other equipment.
“We collected and disposed of 20 bags of trash which consisted of glass, cigarette and cigar butts, lighters, batteries, water bottles, soda and beer cans, fishing reel lines, lures and hooks, chip bags and other food item trash, plastic grocery bags, rope, leftover fire debris including coal and cooking supplies, an oar, boogie board, plastic tire tube, as well as other many unidentifiable metal and plastic objects,” Converse said. “Many metals were rusted.”
The girls toted trash bags and wore protective gloves as they combed dunes and vegetation for debris that shouldn't have been there in the first place, Converse said. “Our beaches need help being maintained,” she said.
“Many people are not practicing the ‘Leave No Trace’ concept and leave behind trash that could have easily been picked up if they just brought a little trash bag along with them.”
Groups may organize beach cleanups through Nancy Hussong, Emerald Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. Contact nhussong@co.okaloosa.fl.us or 609-5387 for more details.
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview area Girl Scouts help clean Gulf Island Seashore beaches