After a month of planning inside my warm office at my desk it was time to get this project started. My office put me in charge of organizing the volunteers for the sand dune grass planting on our beach. We had to plant 10,000 sand dune grasses in two weeks bit did not have the man power to do it within our office. So I made up some cute flyers and did some marketing work to get the word out. Within days we had dozens up people calling and signing up to help.
Below is a press release I wrote up to submit to a local newspaper. I know it may not seem like much but dunes are a big reason why our beaches and town survived Hurricane Sandy. While our town did get some damage and we lost our pier, without those dunes we would have been under water.
Even in the off season the boardwalk is busy with people in the morning. Joggers and walkers getting their morning exercise, people walking their dogs, and people who just want to see the sunrise. People come to the beach and boardwalk for many reasons in the off season even if it is not ideal swimming and sun bathing weather. The week of October 20th there was something unusual happening on the beach which caught people’s attention. There were around twenty people kneeling on the beach with others carrying flags and umbrella poles every day. It was definitely a scene that caused many people to walk by and ask questions.
The town was organizing a sand dune grass planting project to help rebuild the sand dunes that were destroyed from Hurricane Sandy. We can credit the sand dune grass for protecting our town and minimizing the damage that occurred in town.
This project took more than a year to plan with many dedicated employees and volunteers needed to make it happen. Signs went up in town and residents came together to help. In one week over 120 volunteers came to the beach to plant 10,000 dune grass plants. Volunteers worked hard never complaining about the cold weather or the sand in their shoes. They kept the optimism and energy going to keep planting. Teams of volunteers worked for three hour shifts each morning, planting 100 feet or more per day. * Names, town and my job were removed from article for privacy.
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