Belen Jesuit Junior Day of Service

On Thursday, March 19, 2026, the International SeaKeepers Society hosted Belen Jesuit Preparatory students and educators on their day of service. Our team welcomed 25 juniors and 2 educators at Historic Virginia Key Beach Park to help foster their commitment to giving back to their South Florida community. After a brief park history with Maya, one of the park’s Education and Volunteer coordinators, and a safety briefing with Lillian, our Community Engagement Manager, our students set off in sight to pick up at least 50 pounds of trash in just under 2 hours. Our most collected items included plastic bottles and bottle caps with some odd items including a broken kite and a pair of nail clippers. We are so grateful to all the hard work of our students who removed more than 70 pounds of trash, well surpassing their original goal. Our team was delighted to hear the passion and concern our students had for the ongoing plastic epidemic and hope today encouraged them to continue to participate in their community. We want to give a huge thank you to Belen Jesuit for their time and dedication and hope to collaborate again in the near future!

Marine Debris Tracker is a data collection app that allows the general public to contribute to an open-date platform and scientific research by recording the different types of litter, specifically plastic pollution, that they find in either inland or marine environments. Marine Debris Tracker was developed by the University of Georgia’s Jambeck Research Group, which SeaKeepers worked with in 2021 when the Jambeck Research Group collaborated with Ocean Conservancy to assess Miami’s plastic waste management, known as a Circularity Assessment Protocol. SeaKeepers again assisted the Jambeck Research Group’s Circularity Informatics Lab in 2022 with another Circularity Assessment Protocol in the Florida Keys. The researchers of the Jambeck Lab use the Marine Debris Tracker app to record their data, and with citizen scientists also using the app, more data can be collected in different areas. Using Marine Debris Tracker at our cleanups involves community members in creating a bigger picture of plastic pollution, and provides the means for new scientific findings to be generated as well as for effective local legislation to be informed. SeaKeepers is excited to be incorporating this app at our cleanups and continue our mission of coastal education, protection, and restoration.