In 2020, Marie Constantin was walking her dog around Capitol Lake in Baton Rouge, LA, a peaceful bit of nature near the state capitol, when she realized the shoreline was covered in trash. “I stood there and I was almost paralyzed because it was more litter than I’ve ever seen in my life,” she says.

But she didn’t stay paralyzed for long. The next day, she grabbed a trash picker and began cleaning the shore. At an age when others retire, the 68-year-old woman kept going back every day for a year, 8-10 hours a day. “Sometimes I would go on a kayak to pick up litter and look for the outfalls, the place where the trash was flowing from,” says Constantin. A professional photographer, she began sharing her progress on Facebook.

Little by little, neighbors started showing up. When a storm hit and thousands of pounds of trash flowed in, undoing much of the work they had accomplished over that year, more folks showed up to help. She estimates that up to 200 folks have come out.

“We’ve picked up 26 tons of litter and four tons of tires,” says Constantin. “Businesses gave their employees time to volunteer. We had federal judges come out, we had little children come out. We had all kinds of people.” In the process, they’ve built friendships and a sense of community.

After cleaning up, a group often hangs out and shares a meal. Constantin’s social media posts capture the spirit. ”There’s one photo where we created a human chain and dragged the bags up the hill, and you get a sense of the camaraderie,” she says.

The group noticed much of the litter flowing to the lake was single-use items, like chip bags and drinking cups. They traced those to trash trucks that were spilling small litter into the streets, where it washed into storm drains that led to the lake. They petitioned, marched, and contacted the media, forcing the company responsible for trash pick-up to spend several million dollars upgrading their truck fleet.

Now, the group is petitioning the city to implement a stormwater management system, which Constantin knows is an uphill battle that might take years. But now that people are connected and realize they can create change, anything feels possible. And she says neighbors are starting new projects to strengthen their community.

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