Beaches Go Green
BGG creates awareness about the waste that we produce & how it impacts our health & the planet.
STRONG LINEUP! Join us at our upcoming events - where EVERYONE IS WELCOME. Have fun, get out there & give back to the community.
As always… We are seeking sponsorships of local businesses or individuals to help us expand our environmental education work in the community 💙💚
SAVE THE DATE!
Fall cleanup at . EVERYONE IS WELCOME! Look for the Beaches Go Green tent at the Atlantic Blvd beach access!
Thank you to sponsors .forlife & for helping us put this on!
We are looking for schools, groups and businesses to volunteer.
We are also looking for sponsors to support BGG with funding, food donations & prizes for our volunteers.
WE WON! Best student club by the readers of the . We are so proud of our student- led environmental education clubs. AND we are growing! More clubs will be announced soon! Thank you for BEING THE CHANGE!
We are proud to host GlobalJax. What a cool way to connect with other cultures and share important information about our environment!
WE HAVE A FAVOR - can you make a donation or sponsor one of our environment education programs? For 6 years, we have provided free environmental education to our Jacksonville community.
We are GROWING & need you! With your support, we will be adding paid employees, more community education & more public events!
Do you have connections to a local business that cares about our planet? EVERY DONATION gets us closer to our goal. Even small contributions help! THANK YOU!
Sunday was a BIG BGG training day for local BGG Student Club Officers & their teacher sponsors. We covered topics from plastic pollution to leadership to events & club roles/responsibilities. We had guest speakers talk about citizen science & stewardship. 18 schools were represented from Duval & St John’s counties with hopes of launching at least 4 more clubs this fall.
We are so proud of our student leaders and so grateful to the teacher sponsors who take extra time out of their busy lives to help make the clubs a great success!
Huge THANK YOU to for hosting us and for hooking us up on the food!
Another amazing BGG event hosting teen Iraqi students & their chaperones. We learned a lot & made NEW FRIENDS! We talked about sustainability, entrepreneurship, our BGG student clubs & programs, our City of Atlantic Beach & its sustainability plans (Thank you, Mayor Ford), enjoyed Joseph’s Pizza & more. What a memorable day! &
Are you interested in starting a Beaches Go Green environmental education & service club at your school? YOU CAN DO IT in a few easy steps!
1) get permission from your school’s administration to start the club
2) get a teacher or staff member to sponsor your club
3) be willing to be an BGG club officer and work with staff sponsor to launch club
4) contact [email protected] to connect all the dots & become an official BGG club.
4) attend a Beaches Go Green officer training event.
4) launch your school’s new BGG club officially at your school’s club fair in the fall.
Let’s try. It’s not going to be easy! LESS IS MORE. For your health and the health of the planet!
We get LOTS of requests for service hours opportunities - especially in the summer when we tend to wind down. HERE are some things that students can do on their own or with friends & family. Most can be done any time and any where…. Vacation? No problem. Summer job? No problem. Don’t have a ride? No problem. This is YOUR chance to earn some valuable service hours or just give back on your summer break@ Help Beaches Go Green further environmental education in our community. DONATIONS ALWAYS ACCEPTED.
Students needing service hours must meet task requirements and receive confirmation from BGG to earn hours.
Bringing like-minded student environmental leaders together is what we do! Getting more school clubs to work together for a greater purpose makes an even bigger impact on our community. Today was the start of many new friendships between our BGG officers. It’s going to be an impactful year. Stay tuned for BGG officer training in August!
Thank you to for hooking us up with an amazing meal for our BGG student volunteers! 👊
**If you are interested in starting a Beaches Go Green Environmental education club at your school or sponsoring a student club in Duval or St John’s counties - please reach out to [email protected]
Not only did we celebrate our BGG student officers, it was Beaches Go Green’s 6 year anniversary! Established in June 2018, we have created an environmental education force in our community.
As the founder, I am so proud and grateful at how we have been embraced by local schools, local businesses and every day citizens that want to make a difference.
BGG HS Club Officer party celebrated our outgoing & incoming officers. Students officers from FHS, PVHS, Nease, Beachside, Tocoi, Mandarin, Sandalwood, St Augustine & Wolfson mingled, ate, played kickball, spikeball, pingpong, Marco Polo, volleyball & more! We even had BGG officer alumni & OG’s on hand to help out.
It’s so important for these student leaders to meet & collaborate with each other. They are making a great impact in our community & deserve to be celebrated!
Another successful cleanup behind us! This time we partnered with St John’s county on their Turtletown cleanup to get our beaches ready for sea turtle nesting season. Huge thank you to and for leading this location and for your support as well!
90 volunteers. 4 bags trash + large items (broken shovel & steel bar)
90 x 2 = 180 hrs x $31.80/hr = $5,724
4 bags x 20lbs = 80lbs x $1.21/lb = $96.80
TOTAL CONTRIBUTION: $5,724 + $96.80 = $6,926.04
WAY TO GO!!! Thank you to all of our volunteers!
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CONGRATULATIONS to the 2024 Beaches Go Green Changemakers scholarship winners. Winners are recognized for their outstanding contribution to environmental and/or wildlife conservation efforts.
Each year, it gets harder to award just (2) scholarships so this year - we went with 7! Each of these super impressive students was awarded with $2500 toward their future education. Truly impressive candidates 💙💚🌎
NEED SERVICE HOURS or JUST WANT TO GET INVOLVED?
Join us at the MICKLER BEACH access in Ponte vedra, FL for a cleanup in honor of the upcoming sea turtle season. EVERYONE IS WELCOME!
TURTLE TOWN is an annual beach cleanup in St John’s county that celebrates and prepares for the upcoming season turtle season which runs 5/1-10/31.
WHEN IT COMES TO SEA TURTLES - PLEASE ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Sea turtles dig the dark
Always fill in holes on the beach
Never touch or interfere with nesting turtles or hatchlings.
It is against the law to touch or disturb nesting sea turtles, hatchlings, or their nests. Sea turtles are protected by both the Federal Endangered Species Act and the Florida Marine Protection Act.
If you see a turtle that is injured or dead - contact your local sea turtle patrol!
Community partners help us spread environmental awareness and education and to hold these amazing public events in our community. They help us to support our (13) student led clubs. They make us all feel appreciated. Together, we are making a difference!
If you want to get involved and sponsor - please email [email protected]
So many local businesses support our effort and we are grateful! From donuts to fruit to breakfast wraps to shrimp to pizza to mini sandwiches. Our volunteers were rewarded with so many tasty treats! It takes a village”. THANK YOU!
More pics form our awesome EARTH DAY community cleanups. So many different groups coming together for the greater good!
TOTAL IMPACT RECAP for 4 locations on ONE AWESOME DAY 4/20/24!
Can’t say enough good things about our student leaders & teacher sponsors, our community partners and sponsors, our volunteers - OUR COMMUNITY ROCKS!
515 volunteers x 2hrs each = 1030
1030 x $31.80 (not vol value/hr) = $32,754 volunteer value contributed.
53 bags of trash x 20lbs/bag = 1060 lbs trash
1060 x $1.21/lb = $1,282.60 Trash abatement value contributed.
$32,754 + $1,282.60 = $34,036.60 total contribution for Beaches Go Green Earth Day 2024
RECAP of our BUTLER BEACH Earth Day cleanup! HUGE THANK YOU to Mr Daniello & the club! You rocked it!!!
Butler Beach Stats:
33 volunteers
2 bags of trash
675 butts
Thank you to our awesome sponsors of food and prizes who make our events THAT MUCH BETTER!!!!
RECAP of the MICKLER BEACH Earth Day cleanup! HUGE THANK YOU TO for making it a great success!!!
Mickler beach stats:
76 volunteers
8 bags of trash + dog house
GRATEFUL for all of our volunteers & community sponsors that donated food & prizes for the event!
RECAP of our JAX BEACH location - EARTH DAY CLEANUP on 4/202/24. HUGE THANK YOU to SISTERS OF THE SEA, ECO ECLECTIC & MANDARIN HS BGG would managed this location!!!!
Jax Beach stats:
176 volunteers
21 bags of trash + large items
10,026 cigarette butts
BIG thank you to all of our volunteers & local sponsors that fed us and provided amazing prizes for our volunteers!
RECAP of our ATLANTIC/NEPTUNE BEACH Earth Day Cleanup.
Beaches town center stats:
230 volunteers
22 bags of trash + large items
7635 cigarette butts
We are so grateful for our volunteers & community sponsors!
HUGE SHOUTOUT to our MICKLER BEACH (Ponte vedra) community sponsors that support us & our volunteers. Your donations makes our events WAAAYYY more fun & make us feel appreciated. We would not be as strong without you 💚💙💚💙.
HUGE SHOUTOUT to our JAX BEACH community sponsors that support us & our volunteers. Your donations makes our events WAAAYYY more fun & make us feel appreciated. We would not be as strong without you 💚💙💚💙.
HUGE SHOUTOUT to our community sponsors that support us & our volunteers. It makes our events WAAAYYY more fun & makes us feel appreciated. We would not be as strong without you 💚💙💚💙.
JACKSONVILLE BEACH (just north of the pier on the beach) is 1 of 4 different locations for EARTH DAY CLEANUPS on 4/20/24. EVERYONE IS WELCOME. Students can earn service hours!
Huge shoutout to all of the local businesses who have donated prizes and food for our volunteers and funds for our environmental education programs. It’s going to be a great time!
Love this shoutout from River City Live. Thank you!!!
Beaches Go Green is for everyone Beaches Go Green is a volunteer based organization looking to make the Earth more sustainable. Students from all over Jacksonville volunteer their time for various cleanup activities.
WE WANT TO BE THE CHANGE.
A group of our beach friends watched a documentary called “A Plastic Ocean” created by the Plastic Oceans Foundation. This movie shocked, saddened and motivated us to ACT! Why didn’t we know that 8 MILLION TONS of plastic are dumped or leaked into our ocean EACH YEAR? Sure, we’ve heard about the Great Pacific garbage patch but there’s so much more to it. We didn’t know that plastics never break down. Plastics break up into smaller pieces of plastic called microplastics and nanoplastics. These tiny pieces of plastic immitate food for many land & marine creatures BIG and SMALL causing suffering and death. Eventually, that same plastic makes it way up the food chain and on to our human dinner tables around the world.
Single-use plastic is a real problem around the world. Single-use plastic is a bad habit in our fast paced lives. The average “life span” of a plastic bag or a plastic straw is less than 15 minutes yet it may stay on our planet forever. Every piece of plastic that was EVER created still exists on Earth today in some form. Exponentially more & more plastic is being created and wasted everyday. The statistics are overwhelming. Scientists predict that if our current plastic use track continues, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.
Did we miss the headlines and the debates in the news? Why wasn’t somebody talking about the dangers of plastic in our environment? Why wasn’t someone talking about how wasteful & dangerous single-use plastics were? Why wasn’t someone advocating for the animals? Why wasn’t somebody doing something about it? Then we realized... WE were SOMEBODY! So we started talking about it with friends and with our children. We set some goals and now its “GO” time!
Our goal is to educate individuals and businesses about the dangers of all of the waste that we produce and how it affects the environment, particularly single-use plastic, in our oceans and environment. With our partners, we hope to spread awareness and inspire change. We also want to build a community of support around organizations and businesses that offer solutions for reducing waste and protecting and improving our oceans and environment. We will start in our own beach community. Join us and BE THE CHANGE and together we will make our BEACHES GO GREEN!