Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Students clean up Perkiomen creek
“Drinking a glass of water or going to the local rivers to fish are things that sound like second nature to us, but what work is done behind the scenes that allows people to do these things?”
That was the question asked by Bucks County resident John Qualteria, minutes after sifting through bags of trash pulled from the Perkiomen Creek and helping to count them.
“I never thought of that before,” he added. “It wasn’t until about three years ago until I realized I could play a part in helping the environment in my own community.”
Qualteria was volunteering at the Perkiomen Watershed annual cleanup on April 6.
Volunteers like Qualteria are crucial to the success of Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy — and there are more and more of them every year.
“I live in Bucks County, but the first time I heard about the conservancy was through Facebook when they were posting about the annual stream cleanup,” Qualteria said.
“I decided to take my family and we had a great time and did a lot to better the environment, he said. “Since then I have been taking some extended family and friends with me because that is what the leaders of this program really encourage.”
The Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy is a local organization that has been focused on protecting the Perkiomen Creek Watershed since 1964. The group is dedicated to this cause because a healthy watershed means a healthy environment.
The annual stream cleanup is a way to increase the health of the watershed by removing trash and debris from its tributaries; the conservancy’s other projects include tree-planting, stream bank reconstructions, and removal of invasive species.
There are many environmental groups doing important work in Pennsylvania, but what makes the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy stand out as a model is its volunteer recruitment.
Jessie Kemper, conservation coordinator for the organization, said the conservancy enjoys support from a strong “base” of volunteers. This base aids the organization in its recruiting by reaching out to friends and family.
In 2011, the organization had 420 volunteers attend the annual stream cleanup, and by 2019, it boasted 1,170.
More workers means more cleaning: the amount of trash picked up nearly tripled over those eight years. This past year, the cleanup crew picked up a record-breaking 1,022 bags of trash, 78 bags of recyclables, 145 tires, and 3,620 pounds of scrap metal from over 88 sites.
But recruiting volunteers does more than just getting the garbage picked up once a year. Kate Keppen, the Director of Sustainability at Ursinus College, stressed the importance of building local citizens’ connections to what’s happening in their own backyards.
“You know, we are so blessed to have clean wa
ter come out of our faucets when we turn that nozzle. We don’t need to think about it because it’s just there,” Keppen explained. “When we wash our clothes, when we take a shower, when we flush the toilet — where is that water going, you know? Not a lot of people know. And I think they should.”
Volunteering builds a sense of awareness and investment in issues like these. Sya Kedzior, an associate professor of Geography and Environmental Planning at Towson University, explains that the
connection between volunteers and their environment is what keeps them coming back.
“Smaller organizations are able to bridge that gap by making a more productive connection between, at the individual level, your activities and the impact in your own backyard,” said Kedzior.
Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy’s success in volunteer recruitment is the result of a few different factors, but fundamentally, it builds a base of volunteers committed to the long-term health of the region and gets them to lobby their friends and family to help.
The process begins with education through programs
with local schools and summer workshops for children as well as seminars for adults, focused on the importance of the issue at hand, in this case watershed health. This creates the interest in volunteering among those core participants.
“For me it was in college,” said Scott Guidos, after being asked when he got involved with the conservancy. Guidos spent the day at the stream cleanup alongside Qualteria. “I had a speaker come in and lecture about the pollution in local bodies of water, and that speaker mentioned the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy. From that moment I felt that I needed to do my part to help these local
bodies of water in my county.”
From there, PWC hosts multiple projects such as the annual stream cleanup, tree planting, rain garden construction and more, which all focus on protecting the health of the Perkiomen watershed. Since they have a “grassroots project approach” meaning all their projects are locally focused and hands-on, they are able to make a strong difference in this area, which appeals to residents who want to improve their own neighborhood.
Then, Guidos notes, the conservancy puts a lot of stress on getting existing volunteers to encourage and recruit others to participate. “I usually try to bring at least one new person every year I have been coming to the cleanup. I always take my family and close friends but I think it’s important to get new faces at the events.”
It is hard to measure exactly the impact of an organization like the conservancy, but it is possible to measure the health of the plants and trees, and the functionality of new stream restoration, which have all been improving significantly in recent years. And the success has a snowball effect.
“One of the really nice things about things like stream cleanups or tree plantings is that people are able to see the immediate result of their efforts,” Kedzior explained. “A lot of times, organizations will make a lot of effort to document the amount of trash picked up. When people see those things, they tend to have a positive association with those efforts. That can often motivate people to keep coming to similar types of events or supporting organizations on a broader level because you feel that it’s worthwhile. In this day and age, when we’re dealing with often very large-scale environmental issues that seem like one person can’t make a difference, it’s that immediate impact that can be inspirational for people.”
What’s often challenging for local watershed organizations, however, is using these newly-converted volunteers for larger goals.
“A lot of organizations will tell me that, it’s great, but the truth of the matter is when we leave from the stream cleanup or leave from the tree planting event, many of the trees won’t survive. More trash is going to come down the stream. What we’re really trying to do is change the laws, the policies, or the social relationships that make it possible for all that gunk to float down the stream in the first place,” said Kedzior. “There’s definitely a gap between those short-term, immediate response, feel-good activities that matter, and those long-lasting things that many organizations are looking at.”
Still, volunteers are able to find comfort in their humble contribution to saving the planet. As Kedzior noted, “When we’re dealing with often very large-scale environmental issues that seem like one person can’t make a difference, it’s that immediate impact that can be inspirational for people.”