Volunteers Play 'Cleanup Bingo' at '23 Walleye Weekend

Volunteers Play ‘Cleanup Bingo’ at ’23 Walleye Weekend

The Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance set up an educational booth at the 2023 Walleye Weekend festival in Fond du Lac. On Saturday, June 10th, Fox-Wolf’s Trash Free Waters and Aquatic Invasive Species Prevention programs were on site providing education to festival attendees from Oven Island in Fond du Lac’s Lakeside Park. The Trash Free Waters program engaged vistors with a “Cleanup Bingo” activity, where volunteers were given a reusable cleanup bingo card, trash grabbers, gloves, and a trash bag, and they set off to clean up litter in the park–hoping to get a “bingo” on their cards. Once they found a trash item from any horizontal, diagonal, or vertical line on the card, the volunteers returned to the Fox-Wolf booth to collect a prize item for their efforts. We underestimated the level of excitement volunteers would have in taking on this activity, and quickly ran out of prize items after only a couple of hours.

Throughout the day Saturday, Fox-Wolf staff talked with more than 300 festival goers about how they can help protect our water resources. Our cleanup volunteers removed over 10 pounds of trash from a small area in the park, and developed the connection that what happens on the land affects our lakes and rivers. We are inspired by the level of effort and determination from our young volunteers, and we look forward to offering this activity at our next Trash Free Waters outreach event.