YSP New Jersey Cleans Local Park

On September 15, the Youth and Students for Peace (YSP) group of the Korean Evangelical Association (KEA) in New Jersey organized a park clean-up at Overpeck County Park in Leonia, New Jersey. A team of nine youth and young adults gathered for a brief overview of YSP’s initiatives and the Environmental Messiah Project, a YSP project to take care of the environment.

The group spent the afternoon circling the large park, picking up trash and litter with the goal to beautify the area and take care of nature and the local park. The group soon discovered that a majority of the trash was in the park’s lake and creek, which was unreachable. This generated the idea to host another clean-up at Overpeck Park and to incorporate kayaks and canoes for access to the water.

When planning the park clean-up, the group reached out to the County of Bergen and found a number of resources for clean-up projects, including trash cleaning equipment and small grants to support non-profit groups for their Clean Communities Program. The county office also had an environmental specialist who can help advise what kind of projects to host.

Interested in cleaning an area of your city? Contacting your local municipality is a great way to start and to get support for a clean-up. Check out your local county website to see what opportunities might be available.