Over 80 Volunteers Attend 10th Annual Riversweep at the Newburgh Rowing Club

NEWBURGH –  on May 1st, over 80 volunteers came out to cleanup the Hudson River at the Ward Brothers Memorial Park, home of the Newburgh Rowing club, said Coach Ed Kennedy, president of the Newburgh Rowing Club.

“We had a great turnout,” said Coach Kennedy, “especially considering that we had to adhere to social distancing guidelines and everyone wore masks and gloves.  “Our volunteers collected more than one ton of trash from the Hudson River, the Ward Brothers Memorial Park, and the Hudson River walking trail, as part of Riverkeeper’s 10th Annual RiverSweep,“ said Coach Kennedy.  “Our volunteers pulled out tires, 43 bags of trash, 8 large logs, 800 pounds of river debris including a large wooden table, several broken plastic buckets, 300 bottles and cans, over a cubic ton of scrap metal, and many liquor bottles.”

“Every single volunteer worked very hard,” said Juliana LoBiondo (“Mrs. Lo”), who was a Riversweep Leader, along with Coach Kennedy, for the 10th year in a row.  “We would like to give a special thank you to the Renegades Youth Baseball Club, which brought down a large group of young people to help out.  They helped us plant dozens of trees which we grew from saplings, and converted wood debris into mulch, which we then use in our park and community garden.”