Coastal Clean-up + Mangrove Planting + Gathering seashells

Every year, the faculty club union of our University is having a Faculty Advocacy day. In this activity, we are going to do community service. This year, we conducted our Faculty Advocacy Day at Guang-Guang Mangrove Park which is just near our school. Our activity was Mangrove Planting and Coastal Clean-up Drive in collaboration with Development Bank of the Philippines.

Our call time is 5:00A.M. and I decided to ride my bicycle for the activity. It has been a long time that I was not able to use my bicycle. Thanks to my hubby for preparing it. The Mangrove Park is about 15-20 minutes bike drive from our house. I arrived at the venue at around 5:45 and prepared to do the coastal clean-up. We have a standard form to fill-in about the details of the garbage that we collected. There were really many kinds of garbage in the mangroves such of plastics, cellophanes, bottles, diapers, food wrappers, soap wrappers and many more. In one mangrove tree, you can collect lot of garbage.

While collecting garbage, I observed that there are seashells so I decided to gather seashells too. Just a short Trivia. When I was young, Guang-guang is open for public were people can swim anytime and gather seashells. We really enjoyed doing those activities during weekends. Because of the constant activity of the people, the seashells in the area becomes limited in number and smaller in size. That's one of the reasons why the area became now a protected area and only local seashell gatherers and fishermen can enter in. Visitors can come but only for viewing the mangroves.

I enjoyed collecting garbage and seashells. The seashells were big, the restoration has helped. After the collecting garbage, we bring it to an area for documentation.

There was a short program and picture taking before we proceed to the next activity which was the mangrove planting. Each of us has to plant at least one mangrove tree. We jokingly said to name our plants and check sometime if it really grow. So here's my mangrove tree!

After the activity, we proceed to our university for the breakfast. It was sponsored by Development Bank of the Philippines. Each of us enjoyed our food ordered from Mcdo.

Personally I enjoyed this activity. I was able to do an exercise since I do biking. I was able also to mingle with the faculty members and was able to share some talks with them. I was able to help the environment through clean-up of mangroves and planting the mangrove trees. I have taken part in way of showing that I love Pujada Bay.

Before I end up my article, let me share to you my cooked "Sinabaw na Kinhason" which I enjoyed in the lunch time.

10.30.2022

Miz Lhaine