Keeping our beaches clean and knowing the changes in our beach shorelines start with you! The Adopt-A-Beach Program is a great way for businesses, school groups, local organizations, and individuals to help keep the USVI’s coast free of marine debris: any persistent solid material that is manufactured or processed and directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, disposed of or abandoned into the marine environment. It is also a great way to document our shoreline changes caused by climate change. Both these activities are fun, free, easy ways to give back to your community and keep trash off of our beautiful beaches!
About the U.S. Virgin Islands' Adopt-A-Beach Program
Ways to Get Involved
You can participate in the Adopt-A-Beach program as part of a group or as an individual.
To participate in recurring cleanups/beach monitoring as part of a group:
- Register for a MyCoast account
- Log in to MyCoast and create a beach cleanup/monitoring group
- Adopt a beach of your choosing
- Download the MyCoast app on any smartphones which will be taken to the beach (available for iOS and Android devices)
- Pick a day that is convenient for your group to clean/monitor your beach
- On cleanup/monitoring day, just open the app and begin recording. Don’t worry if not everyone has a phone – more than one participant can record data on a single device
If you are visiting the USVI and would like to participate in a one-time cleanup/shoreline measurement, you just need to install the app, create an account giving your home location as USVI and open it on the beach. Even if you’re just picking up a couple of things, it helps us to have that data for analysis. Thank you in advance!
Resources
If you are an educator or someone interested in free lesson plans and special activities. Download the:
If you would like to learn more about shoreline monitoring projects happening elsewhere and how it is being done, click here.