Volunteers Make a Difference!

On Saturday, July 28^th, the Shore Club hosted the second annual Lakeside Clean Sweep. The event kicked off this year with over 30 enthusiastic volunteers lined up and eager to get started collecting and removing trash and debris strewn about the Public Boat Launch, Hughes Property and the shoreline in between. 

The SeaTac Parks Department personnel issued trash bags and litter picker tools to the ‘terrestrial’ volunteers who were then dispatched to areas in the public park and on city owned property.  ‘Amphibians’ jumped onto the Bruce Bryant boat and were ferried over to the most heavily littered areas between the Offices and Apartment complexes located along the Southwest shores of the lake.  The Goulet Brothers, Lonnie and Bruce two pontoon boats with steel barge sandwiched between them served as dive platform for the deep water ‘aquanauts’ to deploy from and acted as a mobile collection point for garbage pulled from the water. It should also be noted that Julie Hill formed her own team to collect litter from the pedestrian walkways adjacent the main surface streets around the perimeter of the lake.

Within the four hours of work, all teams contributed two heaping piles consisting of paper, cans, bottles, mattress pads, numerous articles of decomposing clothing, a tent, tarps, several tires, a few chairs and yes, even a kitchen sink!  City parks employees helped to load and dispose of the more than two truckloads required to haul off the refuse collected from the project.

Once all the litter was carted away, the crew cleaned up and headed to the center of the lake to enjoy a full lunch accompaniment of sandwiches, chips, and refreshments after which a random raffle prize drawing was held.  Lucky participating volunteers received one of four ‘Olde Skool’ Angle Lake Shore Club hoodies or a ‘Big Bobber’ floating cooler. 

While the level of effort required for cleaning the area of garbage met most volunteer’s original expectations, very few anticipated the amount of satisfaction they’d feel from the outstanding job they performed ridding the area from all the unwanted debris.  When volunteers perform community service work the gift is truly received twice. Special thanks and recognition goes to the Angle Lake Shore Club and it's members for organizing and sponsoring this community event.