She doesn't get much sleep these days with all of her civic and school work, and last weekend was the Occoquan River Cleanup Day, which had her checking in kayakers and cleanup volunteers in the early hours. She and the other volunteers picked up 4 lbs of trash from the dam site, including a ton of glass, which has accumulated there over the past however many years. There is still so much glass to cleanup before kids can safely use the trail down to the water. The put-in site for kayaks at Eden's Adopt-a-Stream site has been newly refurbished by PW Co, though and they have done an amazing job adding new rock and clearing the trail so that recreational boaters can put in after the dam. Eden's stream-site is a big job, because when the dam is opened, a lot of trash comes through and gets stuck in the weeds and bushes. She is hoping to start holding workshops at the site about pollution and benthic-macroinvertebrates, as well. PW Co did have a nice surprise for her when she got to the site for her cleanup day - they erected her sign! She was super excited!

One of Eden's favorite things to do is to teach the watershed model, something else that she learned from PWSWCD and even though she has moved onto a lot of different community service efforts, she still looks for opportunities to teach about water pollution and its path into the Chesapeake. Last week, she taught the model to my Brownie and Junior troops and to her Cadette/Senior Troop. We always appreciate PWSWCD allowing us to check out the model whenever there is an opportunity for her to teach it.

Finally, Eden's Congressional Award efforts have evolved into a new kind of work. Starting last month, Eden started her first hours of 100 volunteering at an assisted living facility. She is almost at 20 hours, having helped with bingo, cooking and crafts. She really enjoys being there and has found that many of the residents are just enjoying having someone to talk to. With her school year finished (except for math and German), Eden has a lot of availability to volunteer this month, so she has been able to have some consistency, which has been nice in order to get to know many of the residents.
