West Augustine Nature Society Turn to Outside Help

The St. Augustine community came out to support the student-led West Augustine Nature Society in their efforts to clean up their West Augustine neighborhood around the Webster School.

Isabella Rodney, Skyler Kai Rodney and Emmett Rodney from the West Augustine, Joe Cinney from Learn to Read, Kimberlyn Elliott and Caroline from the Lincolnville Museum and Ashlynne from Buena Onda Cafe.

RESET St. Augustine, Learn To Read, the Lincolnville Museum and the Buena Onda Cafe on West King Street all came out to partner with the West Augustine Nature Society.

RESET volunteer, Webster teacher and Webster PTO President Lindsay Watters with West Augustine Nature Society co-founder, 3rd grade Webster Student, Isabella Rodney, RESET St. Augustine co-founder Alyssa Kelley and St. Augustine High School 10th grader Aniyah Bell

Local West Augustine community members such as St. Augustine High School 10th grader Aniyah Bell, Murray Middle School teacher Brennan Gagnon and long-time West Augustine resident Doris Sheppard represented the neighborhood together with the leadership from the West Augustine Nature Society.

West Augustine's Doris Sheppard is always ready to clean up with the West Augustine Nature Society.

The Lincolnville Museum, led by associate director Kimberlyn Elliott, came out in full force, as they are always looking to reach out to the West Augustine community, which is connected to Lincolnville through history.

The Lincolnville Museum volunteer team led by associate director Kimberlyn Elliott worked hard to clean up the streets in West Augustine.

The volunteers cleaned up on N Clay Street, Bruen Street, Chapin Street and parts of N Orange Street, streets that are often inundated with litter. 

"We founded the West Augustine Nature Society in 2019, because we were tired of looking at all the trash polluting the streets in our community," says co-founder and president of the West Augustine Nature Society, St. Augustine High School 10th grader Skyler Kai Rodney. "We've been doing community outreach at local events all summer, but we are having a hard time getting locals out, so we are thankful for all of these organizations coming out to help us."

Thanks to the efforts of the West Augustine Nature Society and all of the volunteers, businesses, clubs and non-profit groups that have come out to clean up since the group began, the streets around the Webster School are a lot cleaner than they used to be, although littering and illegal dumping is still a huge problem in the community.

Co-founder and vice president Emmett Rodney says. "It is not enough to do clean-up events. It's also about prevention, because we need people in our community to stop littering." The 7th grade Murray Middle School student and 7th grade senator says "The earth is not a trash can."

With more than 30 people coming out to clean up, the team of volunteers were able to collect about 35 bags of trash. 

The West Augustine Nature Society has partnered with the St. Johns County Solid Waste Division through the St. Johns County Adopt-A-Road program. The county lent the group grabbers, signs as well as safety vests for the event, and they will also help get rid if the trash, which was collected.

The next West Augustine Nature Society clean-up event will be on Martin Luther King day. You can email westaugustinenaturesociety@gmail.com .

*This piece was originally posted on the West Augustine News Connection on September 25th, 2021.

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