Quad Cities, USA - Living Lands & Waters (LL&W) is seeking approximately 800 to 1000 volunteers from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri to take part in a first-ever, multi-state clean-up of the upper Mississippi River. The event will take place Saturday, June 19, 2010 with a goal of involving volunteers in 22 cities from Saint Paul, Minnesota to St. Louis, Missouri. LL&W is also needing site coordinators for each location, boats and drivers, and supply donations.
Over the past 12 years, LL&W has removed more than six million pounds of trash through clean-up efforts along the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois and Potomac rivers. LL&W has also coordinated flood clean-up efforts after Hurricane Katrina and the historic floods in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. LL&W Founder and President Chad Pregracke calls the Great Mississippi River Cleanup "We've been able to host over 440 community cleanups over the years and this is the biggest effort we've ever done." Pregracke adds, "This has been needed for a long time, and we're so very excited to be coordinating this important effort."
Living Lands & Waters is a 501(c) (3) environmental organization established in 1998 and headquartered in East Moline, Illinois. Besides Community River Cleanups, LL&W conducts Big River Educational Workshops, the MillionTrees Project, Riverbottom Forest Restoration and the Adopt-a-River Mile program.
The Great Mississippi River Cleanup will remove debris; such as tires, barrels, propane tanks, appliances, plastic bottles and even a message in a bottle or two from the shorelines and islands of the upper Mississippi River. For more information about what LL&W has pulled from America's rivers and our needs in this massive cleanup visit www.livinglandsandwaters.org.