On Saturday, Sept. 19, Lee County joins a cleanup that has been running for more than 35 years, and Keep Lee County Beautiful is looking for people willing to give it two hours.
The International Coastal Cleanup runs from 8 to 10 a.m. at sites across Lee County. Keep Lee County Beautiful, Inc. is the local coordinator for the effort, which is organized worldwide by the Ocean Conservancy and supported here by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. It lands on the third Saturday of September every year.
The local numbers are the persuasive part. Over the last five years, the program has brought together more than 9,000 volunteers in Lee County, and they have pulled more than 20,000 pounds of trash out of local waterways.
Worldwide, the cleanup has mobilized more than 17 million people, who have collected more than 348 million pounds of trash from more than 300,000 miles of shoreline.
There is a practical reason to care beyond the obvious one. Tourism brought $3 billion into the Lee County regional economy last year, and the water is the reason people come.
Keep Lee County Beautiful also needs site coordinators, the volunteers who run a single location on the morning of the cleanup. Sarah DeRissio, the group’s program coordinator, is taking those names at [email protected] or (239) 334-3488.
This year’s sponsors include the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce and the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation.
How to sign up
The 2026 Lee County site list and volunteer registration had not been posted yet as of Sept. 1. Watch klcb.org for both, or email [email protected] to be put on the list.
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