406 pounds of trash uplifted along with volunteers’ spirits

Story and photos by Judy Benson

Alexa Madria of Brooklyn, New York, was one of five book club members who volunteered at the cleanup.

For Amanda Kostalis of Wallingford, spending a Saturday morning extracting plastic cups, food wrappers and other garbage from the rocks along the New Haven shoreline is a kind of public service therapy.

“I try to volunteer as much as I can,” she said, as she slid her trash grabber between two boulders. “It helps to combat those feelings of hopelessness.”

Kostalis was joined by about 50 other volunteers at the Aug. 16 kickoff on Long Wharf Drive of the ninth annual 2025 #DontTrashLISound campaign hosted by Connecticut Sea Grant and Save the Sound. The roadway, well known for the more than two dozen food trucks that regularly park there, it’s a highly visible stretch parallelling I-95 that also collects an overabundance of litter. Though city workers clean the street and roadside daily, a lot of trash still ends up being carried into the nearby waters of Long Island Sound, or trapped in crevices between the rocks along the shore. A total of 406 pounds was collected during the two-hour cleanup.

A bucket of trash collected by Jill Jarvis, left, and her daughter Paige is filled to overflowing.

“We’re blown away by the amount of trash we’re finding here,” said Jill Jarvis of Easton, who volunteered with her daughter Paige. The two are members of the National Charity League, a group that encourages members to participate in mother-daughter leadership and service activities.

“We thought this was an important way to help preserve the Sound, and we’re spending some quality time together,” Jarvis said.

Kristi Slater of Redding, also a member of the National Charity League, brought her daughter Sarah and her daughter’s friend Liliana Matera to the cleanup. Together the three hauled out six bucketfuls of trash weighing a total of about 30 pounds.

“We’re all outside beach people,” Slater said. “We’re so lucky to live in Connecticut near the coast. We thought this would be a nice way to do something for the environment.”

Sarah Slater said she didn’t mind clambering over the rocks to pull out Styrofoam food containers and plastic bottles.

“It’s actually kind of fun,” she said.

Among the volunteers were five members of a virtual book club from several Northeast states who had come together in New Haven for an in-person meetup.

Michaela Kohler f Topsfield, Mass., reaches between rocks on the shoreline to bring up trash during the Aug. 16 cleanup.

“We wanted to do a group activity before we meet up a restaurant later,” said Michaela Kohler of Topsfield, Mass., who laid on her stomach atop the rocks to reach some of the trapped trash with her grabber.

“It was a pleasure to see so many enthusiastic volunteers on a Saturday morning,” said Nancy Balcom, associate director of Connecticut Sea Grant. “It’s clearly not ‘one and done’ for the many who said they were also joining the next cleanup event. Personal satisfaction grows out of actively doing something that makes such an obvious difference.”

The 2025 #DontTrashLISound campaign will continue through International Coastal Cleanup Day on Sept. 20 with social media posts and cleanups throughout the state. This year’s theme, “better than plastic,” promotes reducing plastic use by avoiding it whenever possible, and choosing reusable items over single-use ones.