Several members of the Boys & Girls Club of Milford have put more than a thousand native plants into the ground to combat flooding and erosion.
The Connecticut shoreline is taking a hit more often, year after year, as we feel the impacts of rising sea levels. As a result, a group of students is choosing to do something about it. Several members of the Boys & Girls Club of Milford have put more than a thousand native plants into the ground to combat flooding and erosion.
The Charles Wheeler Marsh, nestled along the Housatonic River and Long Island Sound, is subject to the effects of climate change -- mostly rising sea levels.
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The more frequent floods brought the Boys & Girls Club of Milford here. These teenagers were awarded grant money through the Boys & Girls Club of America, in partnership with Dollar Tree, to spend it on a project of their choice,.
“And ours [teens] chose erosion. So, when I heard that, we ran with it,” said Samantha Sontag, the Program Director.
The teenagers put 1,100 new native plants in the ground, restoring dunes, and protecting against coastal erosion.
“The Connecticut Audubon Society is so excited about partnering with organizations like the Boys & Girls Club, working with younger individuals and groups to actually get them out, in the field, hands in the mud, in the dirt. That’s really, no pun intended here, where conservation is rooted in,” said Stefan Martin, the CT Audubon Society Conservation Manager.
Their project was called Plant A Living Shoreline. The initial planting was last year. The teens returned to the site this spring to find everything going well.
“It was a really great experience, to be honest. It was really cool to see how, just by planting plants, how that can affect how we live, how we breathe,” said Jacob LeClaire, one of the club's members.
“We are taking care of our environment, just so that our future generations, and my generation, can continue to grow in a healthy space,” club member Analiyah Velez said.
If Connecticut does not take action against coastal erosion and sea level rise, beaches could shrink or disappear in some areas. The Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation, or CIRCA, projects up to 20 inches of sea level rise by 2050, but much of that depends on greenhouse gas emissions.
“Seeing our beach deplete every year, it’s a sad sight. Seeing people put sand in our beach every year, that’s not something normal. So we’re just trying to help combat it," club member Cesar Mendez said.
This was just one of the projects the Boys & Girls Club of Milford completed. The club won first place at the summit of America's Youth in Washington, D.C. in 2023 after presenting their coastal resiliency project. The club also created a butterfly stopover at the Charles E. Wheeler Wildlife Management Area in Milford. The club is launching the Coastal Connection Coalition, an effort to unite local beach associations and coastal communities to tackle shared environmental challenges. Finally, they are working with the City of Milford to paint 10-15 storm drains along the coastline -- areas that are subject to storm water pollution and flooding, and raising awareness about those impacts on Long Island Sound.
