Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes

Thousands of people are drawn to the beautiful beaches of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore each year. Each person is responsible to leave the beach in the same or better condition than they found it. Visitors are encouraged to take out all their trash and used containers and to pick up any trash that they see while at the beach, but it is important to have a program of regular maintenance to assure the beauty of the beaches.

The Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes in cooperation with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the Alliance for the Great Lakes has developed an Adopt-A-Beach program to provide regular monitoring and clean-up of the Lake Michigan beaches within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. When you become an Adopt-A-Beach volunteer, we request that you or your group make five (5) clean-up visits per year. These visits will usually occur once a month during spring through early autumn. You will be asked to evaluate the state of the beach and related facilities, keep an inventory of the trash you pick up, and do some simple water quality tests. Learn more about what is involved at the Alliance for the Great Lakes Adopt-A-Beach web site. Still interested?

The following beaches are in the Adopt-A-Beach program:

• Boekeloo Road
• Platte River Point
• Tiesma Road
• Peterson Road
• Esch Road (Otter Creek)
• North Bar Lake
• Glen Haven
• Mouth of the Crystal River North
• Sunset Shore
• Lane Road
• County Road 669
• County Road 651
• South Manitou Island
• North Manitou Island

How to become an Adopt-A-Beach Volunteer

1. Contact the Adopt-A-Beach Coordinator, Kerry Kelly, by e-mail or phone (231-421-1645) to indicate your interest. The Coordinator will help you select a beach and help you through the process of getting signed up and obtain the materials you will need including an Annual Pass to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
2. Sign up as a Volunteer-in-Park (VIP) at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. If you are already a VIP, we will add this job to your existing VIP profile. If you are not a VIP, fill out the VIP Agreement form.
3. After you are assigned a beach, you will register with the Alliance for the Great Lakes by contacting Jamie Cross by e-mail at jcross@greatlakes.org or by phone 866-850-0745 ext. 12 to request a registration form. After registering, you will receive an introductory packet from the Alliance and a user name and password to their online database for entering your trash clean-up data. We are giving our volunteers more options to report data this year. If you choose not to use the online database, you can drop off your forms at the Visitor Center in Empire, or mail or e-mail them to Kerry Kelly, AAB Coordinator.

Procedures for the Beach Clean-up

Pick a date to clean your beach. You should do this at least once per month. Twice per month in the summer would be even better!

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore conducts water sampling at each beach once a week during the summer, so we do not expect our volunteers to test the water. However, some of you may want to do this as an educational event for your children or other team members. If you will be doing a water sample on this visit, order a water bacteria test kit from Jamie Cross at the Alliance for the Great Lakes two weeks prior to your visit. Remember that the test kit is only good for three weeks. Contact Jamie by e-mail at jcross@greatlakes.org or call 866-850-0745 ext 12.

If you don’t have a set of forms, download them (litter monitoring and AAB Routine Visit Form).

Wear your Adopt-A-Beach T-Shirt and/or hat. Visitors at the beach will want to talk with you and learn what you are doing.

Take a garbage bag, litter-gitter, clip board, and forms. Take a GPS unit if you have one available to document the location of hazards, large items that you need help removing, or dead birds or fish.

When you get to the beach, begin to fill out your forms describing the beach and weather conditions.

Begin picking up trash in and around the parking area. Be careful of poison ivy around the edges of the parking lot and along the path to the beach. Keep track of the type of trash you pick up on the back of the Adopt-A-Beach Litter Monitoring form.

Do not pick up any dead birds. Notify Kerry Kelly, AAB Coordinator, about any sick or dead birds and their location. He will notify our botulism study crew who will report it and either remove it for testing or bury it. Dead birds or fish on our shore may be related to avian botulism. We support an extensive, multi-agency study into the cause of waterfowl deaths on our Lake Michigan shores. If you are interested in learning more about this study check the study web site. If you would be interested in joining our team of volunteers who walk a beach once a week from June through November checking for water and beach conditions, dead birds and fish, contact Kerry Kelly, who will get you in touch with the Avian Botulism Program Coordinator for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Keep track of the time you spend and the number of people in your group to calculate the total volunteer hours. Report your Volunteer hours to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Volunteer Coordinator. You can drop off your hours at the Visitor Center in Empire or e-mail the information to Kerry Kelly. You can download a Volunteer Time Sheet to keep track of hours. Volunteer hours are reported as part of the National Park Service annual report and impact the future budget for the park, so please be sure to report your time.

Work Order Numbers

For beaches south of Empire, use Work Order # 3979900
For beaches north of Empire, use Work Order # 3984312
For beaches on South Manitou Island, use Work Order # 3981377
For beaches on North Manitou Island, use Work Order # 3981943

When you are done, you can enter your data online at the Alliance for the Great Lakes web site www.greatlakesadopt.org.

If you prefer, you can e-mail them to Kerry Kelly or leave the forms at the Visitor Center in empire.

If you have any questions, contact Kerry Kelly.