On May 1, more than 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 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.”

“In addition,” said Kennedy, “we would like to thank City of Newburgh Councilwoman Ramona Monteverde, who helped out with the cleanup, as well as Town of Newburgh Town Councilman Anthony LoBiondo and Family.”

This was the 10th Annual Riverkeeper Sweep, an annual day of service for the Hudson River and its tributaries where volunteers do a shoreline cleanup or tree planting project. Over the last nine years, Riverkeeper volunteers have completed 804 projects along hundreds of miles of shoreline and have removed 275 tons of debris, and planted or maintained 4,490 trees or native grasses.

For more information about the Newburgh Rowing club visitnewburghrowclub.org.

For more information about Riverkeeper visitRiverkeeper.org