Volunteers fan out for Earth Day cleanup in Lewes
Just as they have done for the past five Earth Days, volunteers from the Friends of Cape Henlopen State Park came out April 22 to clean up the east side of Lewes.
They picked up trash on Johnnie Walker Beach, Savannah Beach, Cape Henlopen Drive and Savannah Road up to the drawbridge.
“This is our time to give back to the City of Lewes and thank them for everything they do,” said John Bracco, past president of the Friends group.
After getting marching orders at Johnnie Walker Beach, the volunteers headed out on a search-and-remove mission.
They found a wide variety of refuse, including diapers, bags of animal waste and a lot of cigarette butts.
“We do this almost every day anyway when we walk on the beach. It’s a very relaxed way of giving back,” said Barbara Siladi as she and her husband, Kim, scoured the beach for trash.
This year, the FOCHSP group was joined by volunteers from Delmarva Power.
Bracco said the FOCHSP does a beach cleanup once a month.
He said their big event is National Trails Day, which is held the first Saturday of June each year, and group members will be cleaning up all the beaches and trails in the state park June 7.
For more information, go to fochsp.org.
Bill Shull has been covering Lewes for the Cape Gazette since 2023. He comes to the world of print journalism after 40 years in TV news. Bill has worked in his hometown of Philadelphia, as well as Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He came to Lewes in 2014 to help launch WRDE-TV. Bill served as WRDE’s news director for more than eight years, working in Lewes and Milton. He is a 1986 graduate of Penn State University. Bill is an avid aviation and wildlife photographer, and a big Penn State football, Phillies and PGA Tour golf fan. Bill, his wife Jill and their rescue cat, Lucky, live in Rehoboth Beach.
