When Marc Guy Baker, owner of indoor skatepark The Shred in Paarden Eiland, asked the children from Brooklyn to help Zoe Prinsloo, founder of Save a Fishie, clean the lagoon on weekends, the SAF Brooklyn Clean-up Crew was established.
“The children always used to come hang out outside The Shred on Friday afternoons and we used to let them have 15 minute skates while the skatepark was cleaned between sessions. One day I mentioned to them that if they helped clean the lagoon on weekends I would, in exchange, allow them to skate for a full session and provide them with skateboards and helmets.
This was well over a year ago and they attend beach clean-ups almost every weekend and many have received their own skateboards now. They have all learnt valuable lessons in this exchange and many have become pretty good skaters!” says Baker.
Tanya Prinsloo, mother of Zoe, says there are about 15 members of the SAF Brooklyn Clean-up Crew, hosted by herself and her daughter at every clean up.
“They are an amazing bunch of kids. They are friendly and respectful and eager to help and we talk to them about the state of our beaches and how they can help make changes at home to prevent litter from entering our waterways and end up in the ocean.
The crew was established in about August 2021 when Marc from The Shred (a local skatepark) made a deal with the kids: come and help at my beach clean-up and he’ll give them free skate session tickets. They loved the idea and they’ve been coming ever since,” Prinsloo says.
Often the children don’t even want the tickets, they come because they enjoy it and they feel empowered and helpful.
“They have even gone to the beach and cleaned when I wasn’t able to go taking it upon themselves to make the effort and clean. We try to help them also by providing them with food and something to drink after the clean-up and even threw them a Christmas party end of last year. When I’m able to, I also put together food hampers for their families,” she says.
