Tip-To-Tip Clean Up Planned

OCEAN CITY – A new event, Ocean City Tip-to-Tip Clean Up, was approved by the Mayor and City Council this week to encourage efforts in keeping Ocean City’s beach clean by rewarding volunteers with a prime surf location for the day.

Special Events Coordinator Lisa Mitchell explained the Tip-to-Tip Clean Up, created by the Surfriders Foundation and K-Coast Surf Shop, is a beach cleanup from the Inlet to 145th Street. The block between 35th and 36th streets will be designated a surfing beach on the day of the cleanup.

Volunteers will take all the trash collected to the 35th Street surfing beach site for a short program to physically show exactly how much clean up can happen in a short amount of time.

“The Tip-to-Tip Clean Up is actually one of 80 international Surfrider events that take place that day,” Surfriders Foundation member Shelly Dawson said. “It is International Surf Day … and it lands on the summer solstice. So it’s a celebration of what we have enjoyed … for several decades at least.”

According to the events coordinators, the objective of the Ocean City Tip-to-Tip Clean Up is to give surfers and patrons a chance to get hands on and make a visual impact on the health of the town’s beach and ocean by participating in a non-profit beach cleanup of the entire stretch of Ocean City with the reward of celebrating their favorite activity, surfing, with their community all day at a better than average sandbar located at 35th Street as opposed to being restricted to the normal and often less than ideal locations for surfing.

“We’re hoping for 75 volunteers to cover the 145 streets,” K-Coast Surf Shop manager Danny Ritz said. “Each volunteer would volunteer for two blocks.”

At 9 a.m., the short display of the trash collected will be held on 35th Street at the site of the surfing beach. Sponsors will be able to review the important messages of the day in hopes to teach everyone ideas, such as, getting to know and love the beaches you utilize by literally being on your hands and knees to clean the beach you will gain a respect for the health of the environment.

The surfing area, 35th-36th streets, will be blocked off by buoys and will be regulated by a squad of volunteer Ocean City Beach Patrol lifeguards. The one day only surfing beach will be available for use from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.

The goal is to encourage growth of acknowledgement of the wellbeing of Ocean City’s ecosystem and surf as well as encourage camaraderie and a sense of responsibility within Ocean City’s surfing community to take care of its own and its resources. The idea is to reward the surfing community for their large contributions with showing that the city supports its surf community and respects its efforts to make Ocean City.

The event will take place June 20 beginning at 7 a.m. and running until 9 a.m. Food, drink, and restroom facilities will be supplied by K-Coast Surf Shop and Crazy Eights Restaurant, which are both located across the street from the one day surfing area, as well as the trash cans and dumpsters located at K-Coast will be utilized to dispose of all trash collected.

“The whole idea is to get the surf community gathered together instead of just driving from your house…go surf and just drive away,” Ritz said. “You come, you walk the blocks where you actually like to surf or where you live to bring that trash…to encourage in two hours look at all you can do and hope to continue that during that through the year.”