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COURTESY OF RAYMOND HERRERA
I am a College student at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, trying to honor God in my daily life. So, when I heard about the Newman Center at my university doing
a beach cleanup, I just thought I’d do the right thing and go help out.
I decided to go because we as humanity have been entrusted by God to take care of the earth, which includes keeping our environment free of trash. This is a small piece of the bigger picture.
Before we left, we started the day off with coffee and breakfast, then a prayer. Once we were finished, we all drove over to the South Padre Island National Seashore. A park ranger went over the ground rules and thanked us for volunteering. We cleaned up for a couple of hours, going through the sands, picking up water bottles,
wrappers, broken plastic, etc.
We even found a couple of hypodermic needles and a big fluorescent light bulb, reporting them as we were told. Once we reached the end of the area we were told to clean, we disposed of all that we collected, about seven big bags of trash, and strolled back to have our lunch. We talked about how consumerism, if left unchecked,
can lead to further pollution, as we found on the beach.
Looking back, I felt proud of doing something simple, yet impactful. It showed me that just a little effort we put into an activity can go a long way.