While many college students head to a resort destination for spring break, some students choose another option. This year 154 students from 15 different colleges across America are in Memphis in March to spend their week off on McKellar Lake cleaning up our mess to keep it from ending up in the Mississippi River. The volunteer student groups are participating in an Alternative Spring Break program with Living Lands & Waters, and they spend several days removing the trash that washes from our city streets, into our drainage system, empties into McKellar Lake, and eventually the Mississippi River.

Chad Pregracke is the founder of Living Lands & Waters (LL&W), and he grew up with the Mississippi River as his backyard playground. He fished, camped, and worked on the River. The more time he spent on the water, the more disgusted he became. With the idealism of youth plus boundless energy and ideas, Chad wanted to clean it up. Government agencies declined to fund the high school students, but the dream still lingered. While in college watching a NASCAR race, the idea struck him of seeking sponsors to fund the work. Alcoa granted him $8,400, and working alone that first summer, he single handedly removed 45,000 pounds of pollution from the Mississippi River in and around his hometown of East Moline, IL. This first grassroots effort included storing the trash he collected in his parent’s backyard.

In 1998 at 23 years old, Chad formed LL&W, and since then the organization has removed 13,588,779 pounds of garbage from our nation’s waterways. His vision has evolved into the only river clean-up operation of this kind and scope in the world. “We are the only people in the world with the equipment to do what we do,” Chad said. For his heart and spirit, Chad has been awarded the CNN Hero of the Year Award and the Jefferson Award for Public Service, America’s version of the Nobel Prize.

Since 2010, LL&W has been returning to Memphis’ McKellar Lake, spending the month of March on the western boundary of our city. “We spend more time here in Memphis than we do anywhere else,” Chad states. McKellar Lake is a deep-water harbor that was created for industries on President’s Island to connect to the main channel of the Mississippi River. In the 1950s and '60s, it was a popular spot for water skiing including Elvis Presley who learned to ski on the lake. Since that time, it has had high levels of E. Coli after a sewer break and is a repository for thousands of pounds of trash. The students here for three week-long, spring break sessions clean up an average total of 100,000 pounds of pollution each year.

When the student volunteers arrive on McKellar Lake in March it is awash with color. The bright greens of new growth are contrasted with the rust orange of a basketball or a discarded barrel, the white labels wrapping thousands of water bottles, and white Styrofoam, mingling with the blues and reds of endless trash. It is shocking, and we – our city – created it all. The workboats pull to the shore, gloves are passed out along with trash bags and the students get to work. “I found a dog bone,” one shouts. “I gotta snow shovel,” another touts. When the last group of alternative spring breakers leaves three weeks later, it is markedly cleaner.

A consistent advocate and partner with LL&W has been Keep Tennessee Beautiful. Missy Marshall, Executive Director of Keep Tennessee Beautiful, has worked closely with Chad and LL&W to clean up the Mississippi River as well as other rivers across the state. Tires are a significant problem for illegal dumping at McKellar, along with the other garbage that ends up there. Missy Marshall explains, “Keeping trash off the streets would help to solve this issue, and government agencies cannot always solve the problem. It takes individuals making a difference every day to take action to improve and beautify their communities. This can be as simple as picking up trash as they walk through their neighborhoods or participating in an organized cleanup event such as The Great American Cleanup.” March is designated as Keep Tennessee Beautiful Month and kicks off the Great American Cleanup. There are events from March 1-June 21 with numerous opportunities to clean up and spruce up.

Chad was about the same age as the spring breakers he hosts when he founded LL&W, and his passion for the River has not waned. Over 1.7M pounds of trash, bound for the Mississippi River, has been removed from McKellar Lake thanks to students who want to make a difference through this unique spring break experience. “It’s not about the world,” Chad says, “it’s about your world.”

For information about Living Lands & Waters and Chad’s work, visit livinglandsandwaters.org. To find volunteer opportunities for area events, visit KeepTnBeautiful.org.