2022 Citizen Conservation Award – Central Florida RECON

Central Florida Recon waterway cleanup fleet is as grassroots as they come. This group is made up of all volunteers who gather on shorelines in Central Florida removing trash and debris making the waters safer for humans and the magical creatures that live there. Central Florida RECON is the spiritual successor to Eco-Action, a grassroots organization that helped inspire many Floridians to become aware of environmentalist causes. Eco-Action was founded back in 1993 by a dedicated group of eco-activists including Beth Hollenbeck. Central Florida RECON has worked in cooperation with other similarly guided organizations like the St. Johns Riverkeepers, Save the Manatee Club, Surfrider Foundation, and countless neighborhood groups and HOAs dedicated to the betterment of the environment. Central Florida RECON has collected thousands of pounds of trash on a nearly weekly basis, helping wildlife and communities around Central Florida.

So far in 2021 Central Florida Recon has hosted 24 cleanups on freshwater lakes in Seminole and Orange counties and ocean shorelines of Volusia and Brevard counties and have hauled 3,689 pounds of trash from our surface waters. We often partner with like-minded environmental groups to welcome others to this movement. We share our event information via two online sites, Meetup and Facebook and post photos and include the number of volunteers and amount of trash hauled for each cleanup event. All supplies are purchased by a core group of about six of us and this money is our personal money, we do not receive any money for our efforts. While on the water we share information related to native aquatic vegetation in the water and point out nuisance and exotic vegetation. We discuss why native aquatic vegetation is beneficial to water quality and why we don't want to bring any hitchhikers on the kayaks and introduce them to other lakes.