Travel Tips

Voluntourism Spotlight: Adopt-a-Beach & Alliance for the Great Lakes

Instead of just sunbathing by the beach this summer, learn how you can do your part to adopt a beach in this week’s Voluntourism Spotlight. You can give back and preserve the shoreline of the Great Lakes with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. Check back every Wednesday for more voluntourism opportunities and tune into Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio on Saturday for more information.

All summer long, travelers flock to the shores of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin to visit the Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes are home to nearly 20 percent of the earth’s surface fresh water and provide more than 40 million people in the US with drinking water.

Instead of just visiting the Great Lakes this summer, why not help with its preservation? The Alliance for the Great Lakes is the oldest independent citizen organization dedicated to the Great Lakes.

The Alliance offers opportunities for the public to both support and volunteer in their mission to “protect and restore the world’s largest surface freshwater resource.” One of their most popular opportunities is the Adopt-a-Beach program.

The Adopt-a-Beach program has as many as 10,000 participants a year and takes place on varying dates in September all over the beaches and tributaries of Great Lakes area. The volunteers  help to remove trash and gather data from their findings that will help in further preservation efforts.

Click here to register to be a volunteer. For more information on the Adopt-a-Beach event visit their webpage and the the Great Lakes alliance website.

By Kevin Theal for PeterGreenberg.com