LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
Members of Team Langley assembled under beautiful blue skies June 5 to beautify the base's shorelines during the 22nd annual Clean the Bay Day.
Nearly 250 volunteers arrived at Eagle Park and geared up with gloves, trash bags and litter grabbers to pick up garbage around the waterline, breaking down into three zones which spanned Langley's shoreline. Buses transported two of the three groups to their assigned zones and returned them to the park upon completion.
The efforts on Langley are traditionally one of the largest assemblies of volunteers in the city of Hampton for the annual event, said Mike Patton, chief of the 633d Civil Engineer Squadron's environmental element.
Before the clean-up started, Patton stressed safety to volunteers, delivering a briefing advising them to use sunscreen, stay hydrated and avoid contact with any animals encountered along the way.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Ullmann, 633 CES commander, commended volunteers for their service and brought to light the impact their efforts will make on the local ecosystem.
"These clean-up efforts will help restore more than 64,000 square miles of Chesapeake Bay watershed, bringing it back to being a viable natural resource and a usable water area for the more than 17 million people that live around it," Ullmann said.
"Your work will help keep this natural treasure pristine," he added.
Patton said the volunteers collected more than 8,000 pounds of debris during the three-hour event.
Airman 1st Class Christopher Hand, a 633d Medical Group equipment maintenance technician, said he was glad to volunteer with a large group of people working together to make a difference on and around the base.
"Most of us do volunteer work here and there, but directly impacting our environment and making our base look better makes this one of my proudest volunteer events," he said.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation started the annual event in Virginia Beach, Va., in 1989 in response to the deterioration of the bay's water quality as a result of dumping and pollution. Since its inception, volunteers have removed nearly 4.5 million pounds of trash from 4,255 miles of Chesapeake Bay watershed. According to the foundation's website, more than half the water in Virginia drains into the Chesapeake.