Spring Beach Cleanup brings residents out to spruce up Sandbridge

SANDBRIDGE — Locals gathered this past month at a picnic area at Little Island Park to gather bags and supplies and check areas mapped out in this residential beach community.

Businessmen James Barton and Kevin Wong were co-chairs of the event, which they have organized for about a decade.

Wong said there is a spring and a fall cleanup in the community, and there is a great deal of support for the efforts.

“We came out to help the community, and it’s great social time for us, too,” resident Margie Thompson said, while checking in. “We love to keep our beach clean.”

Jim Phipps, 96, and his son, Neal Phipps, joined the effort, too.

“Every year,” Neal Phipps said.

“Just needs doing,” Jim Phipps said.

Along the beach, two Ocean Lakes High School students, who both live in Ocean Lakes, participated because they heard about it through family.

“We come here in the summer, pretty much every day,” Dylan Ahern, 16, said.

“We’re trying to get the biggest bag,” Erik Cole, 17, said.

They picked up, among other things, plastic beach toys, discarded bags and even, near the refuge on the southern end of the beach, two shotgun shells.

Not far from Sandbridge Island Restaurant and Sandbridge Market, resident Wade Malaby filled a bag, which was picked up by a truck from one of the local realty companies.

He started working on another bag. 

“I live here,” he said. “I want it to look good.”

© 2016 Pungo Publishing Co., LLC