Students of the Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies (SCS) celebrated Earth Day by participating in a Clean Waterways Cleanup event at Kenilworth Park near the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C., April 20.
The cleanup began at 9 a.m. with a speech outlining the purpose of the event and key safety precautions. Students then spent an hour and a half walking around the park collecting litter, followed by another hour of sorting. The students focused on removing litter, increasing stewardship of the Anacostia and engaging with the watershed’s ecosystem.
SCS students collaborated with other organizations in this event, including the Anacostia Riverkeepers, a team dedicated to protecting and restoring the Anacostia River. Given their experience in hosting similar events, the Riverkeepers provided guidance and support to the students.
Nikhil Moondra (SCS ’24), a student who attended the event, said his motivation for joining the river cleanup was driven by a hands-on sustainability involvement, an opportunity he does not often encounter in his real estate work.
“Working in real estate, you take a really indirect approach to sustainability,” Moondra wrote to The Hoya. “This comes in the form of working with buildings and making sure they are energy star certified, LEED certified or running solar analyses and other energy initiatives. I wanted to get out and do something that was more direct and engaging.”
Keenan Courtland, the program manager of the event, said that the cleanup was tailored to cater more towards students pursuing a real estate degree with the purpose of developing their understanding of their local community.
“A lot of our students are at different stages in their career looking to develop and grow, specifically in D.C., but in other parts of the country,” Courtland told The Hoya. “I have, in my previous role, known about Anacostia Riverkeeper and felt that this is one of the more direct links to their work — understanding that to develop and make the community better, you have to first start by contributing and cleaning it up.”
Shayna Mustee, a program manager involved in organizing the event, said that despite the event’s relatively small scale, it had a significant positive impact.
“Sustainable events do not have to be sizable to make a difference,” Mustee wrote to The Hoya. “Participating and hosting events similar to cleaning up the Anacostia River demonstrates the accessibility of these practices. Adopting methods seemingly inconsequential, can quickly become an involuntary habit and contribute towards broader conservation efforts.”
Moondra also said it was encouraging to connect with fellow peers who shared his passion for environmental conservation.
“I think being around like-minded people and chatting with them about wanting to make a difference, even if it was in a small way, was the most rewarding part of the experience,” Moondra wrote.
Courtland said he was concerned about the limited awareness within the Georgetown community regarding their environmental impact, emphasizing the urgent need for greater care and stewardship of our environment.
“I feel like it’s a really difficult time in our ecosystem to be in such a privileged place, but know that our waterways are directly suffering from the success of the city in some ways,” Courtland said. “So for instance, this event, I think, clearly helped to show that D.C. isn’t as urban as we want to believe it is — that there are parks, that there are different places people can be and they deserve to be cleaned and kept. It really kind of shows you how little people do to maintain cities.”
“I believe that this event helps people see that we live in a very big estuary, and not just an urban environment where there are parks, rivers and other things,” Courtland added. “And, we have to do as much for them as we’re doing for ourselves.”
