Olivia Charis Photo
Turning a dumping ground to a community treasure, volunteers worked to preserve the beach at the end of Howard Avenue.
Volunteers pull up invasive weeds from the coast.
The volunteers from the Oyster Point Greenspace group gathered on Saturday for a clean-up event with other local organizations. The group of volunteers was organized by the nonprofit Urban Resources Initiative.
URI Intern Joshua DeAnda, a 24 year-old master’s student at the School of the Environment, was among those working on Saturday, focusing on removing invasive species, “fast spreaders” that “are often not conducive to local diversity and ecosystems.” These plants include mugwort and “sticky weed,” which the team filled over five bags of an hour into the afternoon.
Volunteers hard at work.
Remnants of sticky weed on gloves after removing the plant.
DeAnda said he enjoys this work because it involves “having conversations” and “getting people together.”
DeAnda planned to take uprooted intruders to a brush pile at a parks facility near East Rock to be composted.
DeAnda helps volunteers remove weeds
In addition to removing unwanted plant life, the team working Saturday also focused on planting new native species.
“If you don’t weed, it just becomes weeds,” said one of the volunteer group leaders, Steve Wilcox.
A rose from a planting a few years back
Steve Wilcox
Wilcox has been volunteering with the Oyster Point Greenspace group for 17 years. Much of the healthy plant life visible on the beach now was planted around the time Wilcox began his work. It has not always been easy to maintain.
The Howard Avenue beach was “historically a place to dump things” like furniture and leaves, observed Murray, a neighbor involved in the clean-up. Hurricanes and other major storms exacerbate the problem.
Wilcox said that it is important to keep places like the beach from becoming trash heaps so neighbors can have access to the water. There are few spaces where people can “actually touch the water.” Wilcox observed. These cleanups are as much an effort to preserve community as they are to preserve the environment.
'A place where people can access the water'
Alder Carmen Rodriguez, who volunteered Saturday, said when residents come together and “be the change [they] want to see” in their neighborhood,” it helps build up the community.
Wilcox said his team’s next goal is centered on Bayview Park, located a three-minute drive away from the Howard Avenue beach. At Bayview, the path within the park is disconnected. He said they hope to “reconnect the trail so that residents can walk through.”
Alder Carmen Rodriguez pulls up weeds.
Weeds on their way to be composted
