Volunteers come from all over to help protect local shores

Hundreds of people spent their Saturday morning digging their trowels in the sand of Anna Maria Island. But they weren't crafting sand castles or searching for seashells. They were helping protect coastal areas from erosion.

Jennifer Hoffman, executive director of Keep Manatee Beautiful, said the organization and its partners have been coordinating volunteer-led plantings of sea oats for the past five years, planting 1,000 annually. However, they significantly ramped up the effort this year, planting 12,000 seedlings on Coquina Beach and other parks along the shore.

"This is, by far, our biggest effort yet," she said. "I couldn't be more proud to see this many people come out this early in the morning and give back to the community without asking for anything in return. It's just amazing to me."

She said they had hoped to enlist the help of 300 volunteers, and that's how many turned out.

They came from all over the region, including Longboat Key, Sarasota, Palmetto, Lakeland, Tampa and beyond.

"It's wonderful," Hoffman said. "It's not just our community that uses the beaches, so it's not just our community that helps."

Among those volunteers was Cyndi Seamon, vice president of Longboat Key Turtle Watch.

She shared her appreciation for this amazing plant that grows deep roots at an impressive rate. She joined the team working at the beach access point off 52nd Street, and she said they got through their seedlings quickly.

Hoffman said she has been in conversation with Longboat leaders about expanding the effort to the island.

On Saturday, volunteers congregated at sunrise on the southern end of Coquina Beach, where they collected commemorative trowels and learned from Hoffman how to properly plant the seedlings.

Sea oats are a type of grass that captures and holds sand in place, helping build dunes and protect coastal areas from erosion during extreme weather.

Hoffman instructed the volunteers to plant the seedlings deep in the sand, covering the roots and a third of the plant itself. Each little plant was given a few feet of space, allowing room for its robust roots to grow.

"They will hold the sands in place when the storms are not too bad, acting as a water break before it comes and floods the inner part of the island," she said.

Besides physically supporting the dunes, the freshly planted sea oats will also afford the dunes some regulatory protection, Hoffman said.

"There is no protection enforcement on dunes that do not have vegetation," she noted. "In putting these out, we protect the dunes, and officers can fine people who damage them. While they were bare, they were simply considered sand."

The seedlings only need about four to six weeks to grow in, and Hoffman said if they can last two months, they'll typically survive for the long haul.

Richard Larsen, a county forester with the Florida Forest Service, said if the conditions work out, up to 95% of those seedlings could take root.

Volunteers had all manner of motivation for joining the Herculean effort to get the thousands and thousands of plants in the ground. It took some sweat to get done, as the powdery white sand of the beaches could quickly fill in a freshly dug hole just as quickly as it was made.

However, attendees quickly got the hang of it, working row by row to fill in the designated planting areas on the beach.

Teams worked at Coquina Beach, as well as parks along Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach.

The volunteers included those of all ages, including Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts from local troops.

While they crouched to carefully put each plant in place, the volunteers spoke about how restorative it felt to take an active role in doing something to protect the shore from future storms, especially with last October's hurricanes fresh on their minds.

Volunteer Wanda Thoreson explained, "Seeing the beaches after the storms was a little bit heartbreaking, so I want to do my part to restore it and bring it back, because I enjoy the area."

Hoffman said the impact on the environment from just one day of planting will be immeasurably profound.

Anyone wishing to support future plantings can donate through ManateeBeautiful.com. Donors can specify in the notes if they want their contribution to go toward a specific undertaking or to any of Keep Manatee Beautiful's community work, from roadside cleanups to beautification projects.