Thank you for your continued support for NJPIRG’s Community Water Watch program.  We have just wrapped up another successful year with an active summer filled with river cleanups and educational activities at summer camps.  We rolled up our sleeves and got our hands dirty while heeding the President’s Call to Serve with the White House’s United We Serve initiative. 

Read stories about our summer activities at our 'Summer Service Blog'.

We kicked off our summer with our Disaster Recovery Trip to Iowa – if you missed it, check out our blog:'Iowa Service Trip Blog'

This August we organized a state-wide river cleanup day, Riverpalooza, which mobilized 225 volunteers in over 9 locations throughout the state to help clean up some of our most polluted rivers and streams that plague our state. Numerous community and student groups came together for a day of music, fun and free food to make a difference! Volunteers removed tons of debris from the rivers, and New Jersey Community Water Watch was presented with a Congressional Award for Outstanding community service.  Events were organized along Natco Lake and the Swimming River Reservoir in Monmouth County, along the Raritan in Middlesex County, along the Toms River in Ocean County, along the D & R canal in Princeton, along the Passaic River in Newark, and along Green Brook.

This past weekend, Water Watch partnered up with the Church of God from Hawthorne New Jersey who brought out 175 very eager volunteers to cleanup a heavily polluted park that was located along the banks of the Raritan River in Middlesex New Jersey. They spent three hours cleaning up and picked up over 300 bags of debris and bulky items! This was a group dedicated to serving the needs of the community which exemplifies the message we at Water Watch try to convey, making it the perfect ending for our summer of service!

Water Watch also succeeded in teaching over 1,500 people this summer! We visited various summer camps, met with Girl Scout troops, and regularly visited the adult community in Middletown to teach various lessons about water. The phrase “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” never applied, because the practices of water conservation and protection do not have an age limit!  Lessons included The Long Haul, a lesson in which the kids had to conserve as much water as possible to win the game.  We also took a week to build an “Edible Aquifer” with the groups. It was a fun and tasty way to learn about the recharging of local water tables! In an effort to get the local kids actually out to the water that we were teaching them about, we decided to take each of the groups out to Sandy Hook, the Atlantic Highlands or Highlands Bay for a long day of water seining. This way, the kids were able to collect and study the different types of marine life that were affected by everything that entered the water and to see how special each and every creature really is. They were also able to see all of the different types of pollution that plague our local beaches.

We have also been spending the summer working on the Trenton Mural Project.  We’ve been working with a local artist to paint a picture of the water cycle to educate kids in the local neighborhood about the importance of conserving and protecting one of our most precious resources for future generations.

Through it all, we’ve made an impact in the local community and instilled a great sense of environmental stewardship. 

Find out more about other Summer of Service Projects

Trenton Mural Project - Donate and help us paint a mural on a wall in a park in Trenton!

Riverpalooza