Bankers Help Collect Local Coastal Cleanup’s 475 Pounds of Trash

The Edison National Bank/Bank of the Islands team volunteered to help the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) complete a very successful Coastal Cleanup on Saturday, September 21. Banker volunteers cleaned beaches and waterfronts on Sanibel and along the Summerlin Road shoreline leading to the Sanibel Causeway.

The bank’s 36 employees were joined by 181 other volunteers from Sanibel, Captiva, Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Lehigh. The Cleanup, which lasted about two hours, cleared 475 pounds of trash and debris off local beaches and shorelines. Everything from cigarette butts, construction materials, balloons, fishing line, plastic packaging – even a tire and a chair – were collected and removed.

“We are so grateful to the Edison/Bank of the Islands team,” said SCCF CEO Ryan Orgera. “That includes the bank’s Asst. VP Darrin Grotrian who led a Rotary team in clearing 100 pounds of the total all by themselves! We also really want to thank Stephanie Schuetz for coordinating such a large bank Cleanup team once again this year.”

The local Coastal Cleanup efforts are coordinated in partnership by SCCF and Keep Lee County Beautiful as part of the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. According to the Ocean Conservancy, 10.5 million volunteers have cleaned 350,000 miles of shoreline collecting 192 million pounds of trash in the more than three decades of this international effort.