Just a couple of block from home Suzanne starts her almost daily walk around Lake Merritt. This jewel of our City has been her inspiration since first moving to the Adams Point neighborhood back in 2011. As soon as she could (post pandemic and early into her retirement) Suzanne joined the A-Team clean up crew of the Lake Merritt Institute (LMI). On a recent Tuesday, she experienced what could be be described as an afternoon of magic. The morning shift of the ‘aquatic garbologists’ had ended, so bucket and picker in hand, Suzanne decided to continue picking up trash as she walked back from E 18th to the Embarcadero. Along the way, there was trash, some small scraps of paper, some large chunks of wool and a piece of carpet. Nothing unusual there, but what made it magic was the people who stopped by to say thank you and chat a bit. One man in particular, Reg, asked her about who takes care of the parks and the lake. She tried to explain the multi-pronged approach, with several City departments involved. The look on his face when she told him that the LMI teams actually pull garbage, and yes, furniture out of the water was priceless. He made her day.
For Suzanne Lake Merritt is special and she knows it is special for lots and lots of people every day. It feeds your soul, it reinvigorates you physically, inspires you, relaxes you, is a great meeting place. In essence it is whatever you need it to be.
It is clear to everyone who visits the lake that more needs to be done to keep the lake clean. If Oakland had the resources there would be more filters to trap trash before it gets in to the water. And if all of our schools taught more about our watershed and the environment right outside our doors, maybe litter would not end up on the street, on the sidewalk and eventually in our parks and in beautiful Lake Merritt.
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