Bankers Join in 2021 Coastal Cleanup on Sanibel

provided to The Santiva Chronicle

The Edison National Bank/Bank of the Islands team volunteered to help the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation complete a very successful Coastal Cleanup on Saturday, Sept. 18. The banker volunteers focused their efforts along the West Gulf Drive beachfront near the West Wind Inn.

The bank’s team of 13 employees and family members was part of a Cleanup force of 1,200 volunteers across Lee County. There were 43 sites countywide where citizens of all ages contributed their time to pick up trash and collect data. The Cleanup organizers at SCCF and Keep Lee County Beautiful forward the collected date to Ocean Conservancy, where it will be analyzed and may have an impact on future environmental public policy.

“We are so grateful to the Edison National Bank/Bank of the Islands team,” said SCCF CEO Ryan Orgera. “Whether it’s their CEO Geoff Roepstorff hunting invasive pythons in the Everglades or events like the Cleanup, they care deeply about environmental stewardship of the natural world that defines Southwest Florida. We also really want to thank Stephanie Scheutz for coordinating the bank’s Cleanup team once again this year.”

The local Coastal Cleanup efforts are coordinated in partnership by SCCF and Keep Lee County Beautiful as part of the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. According to the Ocean Conservancy’s worldwide data, 10.5 million volunteers have cleaned 350,000 miles of shoreline collecting 192 million pounds of trash in the more than three decades of this international effort.