The 25th Annual Great Allatoona Lake Clean-up

Early Saturday morning, Cullen and I joined some fellow scouts at Proctor Landing in Acworth as part of the longest-running organized conservation project in the country. The clean-up covered the shore areas of as much of the lake as possible, including a couple of counties and an huge number of volunteers.

  

We scoured the ground for even the smallest bits of trash...

 

 

mostly finding bottles, cans, plastic food wrappers and thousands of cigarette butts. Our most unusual finds included a camouflage t-shirt, a dangly earring made of can pull tabs, a couple of rubber balls and a boiled egg yolk hardened to the point that it felt like a rock. (You would think some animal would've eaten that.) We watched a group of scouts from another pack toting, inexplicably, a stray door from a port-a-potty up from the water's edge!

I only had my phone for photos, and this is by far the oddest shot I've ever taken. I think I was moving forward as I snapped. Looking at it makes me a little dizzy! Anyway, this is Cullen and his Cubmaster, Rob.

We live very near the lake, as do most of the scouts in Cullen's pack, so it was easy for each of us to really care about taking care of the area. After we had covered our assigned area, we gathered at a picnic table. The boys were most surprised and incredulous that there so many beer bottles had been thrown into the woods.They had trouble understanding why those folks didn't use one of the very evident trash cans. Honestly, I wondered the same thing.

Here's our group of kids - the boys and a few sisters that joined in. They seemed to each have a sense of accomplishment, as the difference they had just made was very evident to the eye. Of course, they were eager to get a commemorative patch, too. I have to say, the whole event felt as much fun as work.