Tennessee River Rescue- October 4 (by Daphne T.)

The Tucker River Fellows, some members from the GPS crew team, some members of PIC (Partnerships In the Community at GPS) and other good citizens of GPS woke up bright and early on Saturday morning October 4 to participate in the Tennessee River Rescue happening all around Chattanooga. Although most of us were groggy and sleepy from a late night at the McCallie/Baylor football game, this outing turned out to be very fun! 

We picked up our trash grabbers, gloves, and trash bags from the River Rescue organizers at Coolidge park and headed towards the boathouse to pick up our boats. All of us ferried over to Maclellan Island (also known as Audubon Island) in johnboats and canoes. 

When we got to the island we all began working hard picking up the trash that peppered the ground on the small island. Some of us played music and made this not-so-fun sounding activity a great and productive way to spend a Saturday morning! Although we spent several hours on the island, we only made a dent on the surface of the all the trash that littered the island. I would enjoy going back to Maclellan Island to help save the environment and pick up some more trash. 

We accidently located a geocache ammo box full of interesting items on the island; we won’t tell you where it is, but a geocaching hunt might be a nice excuse for an outing to the island. Some items found during our trash clean-up included a toilet seat, lots of styrofoam, some tires and a 50 gallon plastic bucket with unknown original contents. We crossed paths with some boysouts enjoying fishing during a fish derby day. We also came across some people enjoying a campout on the island that is part of the blueway canoe trail system.