Our speaker was Joshua Dykstra from Eriesponsible.  It is an organization started by a diverse group of individuals who share a love for Lake Erie and a concern for it's future health.  It is a 501c3 organization looking to make a cultural change when it comes to prevention, collection, and awareness of marine debris and invasive species in Lake Erie, other fresh water lakes and tributaries.

 

The organization focus on education, awareness and cleanup.  They partner with Ohio Sea Grant, a state organization who has developed educational programs.  For awareness they work to get into schools to share the message with students and affect changes.  In addition to this, they do participate in physical cleanup. This includes many Marina partnerships, open water cleanup and underwater cleanup.  They try to pull several thousand pounds of debris from Lake Erie yearly.  Unfortunately this is a small amount compared to the over 1 million pounds of debris in Lake Erie.

 

For more information and videos of their activity, go to their website:  https://www.eriesponsible.org/