This past May, co-founders Danielle Griffith and Patrick Moran, a Yale alumni, led a group of Yale Day of Service volunteers to clean up the Potomac River and help revitalize an 18th century lock house at Lock 8 of the C&O Canal National Park.

It was great to see everyone come out for the event as part of the 2016 Yale Day of Service, a global service initiative that gathered over 3500 alumni, families and friends from 20 countries, 40 U.S. States to over 250 service site in 2016.

Not only did we collect more than 200 pounds of trash from the shores of the Potomac River, volunteers mowed the grass, removed invasive plant species, and painted the 18th century lock house that hadn’t been open to the public in over a year and had since become overgrown with weeds and covered in graffiti. All it took was some team work, and now we’re pleased to see it set up as a charming River Center for the Potomac Conservancy.