SWAMPSCOTT — At Red Rock Park and King’s Beach, a stretch of shoreline on the Lynn and Swampscott line known for collecting more than its share of debris, a group of seventh graders spent part of their April vacation cleaning up trash, digging through seaweed, climbing over rocks, and laughing about what they found along the way.
The cleanup, organized as part of an annual Earth Day effort with SPUR North Shore, brought out volunteers across the region, including Girl Scout Troop 67144. The troop has made the event part of its routine for years.
The event is part of a broader effort by SPUR, which has hosted the cleanup for more than a decade and draws more than 1,000 volunteers each year.
“Our mission is to mobilize volunteers in meaningful service in terms of charity that supports tangible needs of our community,” said Bryan Lamoreau, the organization’s director of volunteer engagement.
For the troop’s leaders, Shauna Delano and Chris Mancini, showing up each year is rooted in something bigger than a single morning of picking up trash.
“I think it’s great for girls to have the chance to connect with each other, to have something that empowers them and promotes leadership,” Delano said. “It’s just a great chance for a bunch of different girls who are interested in different things to come together.”
That energy carried across the beach as the girls spread out, calling to each other over the rocks, comparing finds, and stopping mid-task to laugh.
SPUR asks volunteers throughout different locations on cleanup day to keep track of how many bags they fill and the strangest thing they find. For troop 67144, every piece of trash along the beach brought excitement, as the race to find the most unique item was on.
“My favorite part is finding weird stuff, like underpants,” said troop member Mae Delano, laughing along with a few troopmates who jumped in with their own favorite past discoveries.
Throughout the morning, the group continued debating the day’s front-runner, with an algae-covered toilet paper roll, a broken down engine, and a sand bag that took the effort of several troop members to unearth taking the top spots.
Troop 67144, made up of about a dozen seventh graders, has been involved in these SPUR cleanups for years, with some members having participated since kindergarten. Their work at King’s Beach has gone beyond a single day of service. Their bronze award project, completed about two years ago, involved creating a public service announcement about water safety and stormwater outfalls in the Stacey’s Brook area.
Wielding gloves and bright yellow trash bags, the troop braved the puddles around the seawall with a seemingly boundless energy (one troop member said climbing the rocks along the shore was another highlight of the event).
Even through the jokes and the running commentary, the reason behind the work was clear to them.
“I think it’s important to keep [the area] clean, because there’s a lot of marine animals out there who want their ocean, whose oceans need to be clean in order for them to survive,” said troop member Emory Schultz.
Mae Mancini, another troop member, agreed that keeping the beaches clean for the animals that may use it was a priority.
“Save the turtles,” Mancini said. “And you can quote me on that.”
On the other side of the beach, Kat Lock and Brianne Paprocki used a claw grabber to reach small pieces of trash between the rocks.
“I’m excited to get trash off the beaches,” said Paprocki, who has been in the troop for about five years.
Lock is newer to the group, having just moved to the area. She viewed the troop’s work that morning as a sense of duty to her community.
“If we don’t clean up, then we’re just going to have piles of trash instead of beaches,” she said. “And then people will complain about the piles of trash even though they didn’t do anything to help it.”
To finish out the cleanup, the troop walked up the beach ramp and along the walking path toward Red Rock Park, with eagle-eyed troop members calling out each used ketchup packet, cigarette butt, and plastic wrapper along the way.
They finished the day having collected two full bags of garbage, and sharing a lot of laughs along the way. In a post-cleanup huddle, Delano and Mancini asked the troop to share any helpful advice for future cleanups.
“We need more people,” Lock said as the group finally rested along a park bench. “And weirder trash.”
It was a fitting note to end on — equal parts practical and playful — and one that matched the tone of a cleanup that felt as much about community as it did about the shoreline. Judging by the laughter echoing across the beach all afternoon, Troop 67144 will be back — ready to climb rocks, clean up, and maybe find something even stranger next year.
