We had several students from Florida State and FAMU visit for a beach cleanup and survey this week. Thanks to PanamaCityBeach.com for sending us this group and to Royal American Beach Getaways for supplies and sponsorship.
The following is a report from the students and facilitators. I’ll comment that adding trash bags to the beach could be dangerous as they indicate, but it would be better than more cans. The cans are ugly and filthy; people must learn to take their trash off the beaches for proper disposal.
The TDC has reported that they are looking into bio-degradable bags for the public beach entrances. I believe this would help.
Thank you VERY MUCH to the students and facilitators who visited our beaches and participated in the cleanup.
(Report from participants in the LeaderShape Institute)
60 students and 11 faculty members from Florida State University and Florida A&M University are taking part in a national program called the LeaderShape Institute. The LeaderShape Institute encourages students to develop a vision for positive change in their communities while being provided with the knowledge and resources to learn how to live and lead with integrity.
As part of the day’s curriculum theme, which was “The value of one, the power of all,” our students divided into groups to complete service projects in the PCB area Saturday morning. Engaging in active service teaches our participants how to work together to identify community needs and create positive change through outreach and relationship-building.
The students working on the beach clean up awareness campaign worked together to pick up litter and gather qualitative data from beach-goers to determine how well the needs of the beach community are being served.
Here are their findings:
1. How clean are these beaches compared to public places?
The students interviewed approximately 50 beach-goers at 2 sites-some local and some tourist. The responses that most tourists offered surprised many of our students because the majority felt as though the beaches were cleaner than most. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most filthy, tourists gave the beaches a 4 score on average. However, the students were presented with a very different perspective from local residents, particularly one of the lifeguards. The lifeguard, a native of Hawaii, said that of all of the country’s beaches, PCB was among the dirtiest. The students reasoned that the beaches were cleaner at this point of year than during peak seasons, which would explain why tourists’ perceptions of the beach condition would be cleaner than the locals’ perceptions. The group collected approximately 25 full bags of garbage, in which were aluminum cans, cigarette butts, Styrofoam cups, old beach toys, and even several diapers.
2. If you were given trash bags, would you be more inclined to clean up your trash?
Almost every respondent indicated that offering personal trash bags would not only fail to solve the problem, but possibly make it worse. Students cited the following reasons:
-failure to properly secure the bags would lead to wind blowing the trash out of the bags and back onto the beach
-the bags might get left on the beach, causing more litter
-the bags might blow into the ocean, creating a hazard for marine life
On the other hand, the students proposed the following solutions:
-more large blue trash receptacles
-in place of using tax dollars to comb the beach, the city should sponsor a local initiative for beach cleanup. Local residents suggested that most volunteer groups that come out to clean up the beach are from out of town and cannot return frequently enough to make a lasting change in the beach condition. By sponsoring local organizations and volunteer efforts, PCB can encourage more consistent effort and attention on the upkeep of its beaches.
3. How much money is spent on beach cleanup annually?
The students documented a wide range of responses, ranging from a few thousand to 4 million dollars. The respondents were generally surprised to find out that over 1 million dollars is spent on beach clean up each year.
The students indicated that they learned a great deal from their experience. Part of the LeaderShape curriculum emphasizes the importance of “staying in action,” so the students have been encouraged to take their new knowledge and contact the appropriate community officials and representatives to encourage more attention and funding to be given to the preservation of the beaches.
Cebo is helping me spread the news about Panama City Beach on PCBDaily.com and he’s also been hard at work on our sister site, SeePCB.com. SeePCB is an all new site that is filling in the gap that is left by PCBDaily. In other words, SeePCB is everything PCBDaily can’t be. PCBDaily is news as it relates to real estate, growth and tourism in Panama City Beach, and SeePCB discusses everything there is to do here. Whether you are a local or a tourist, you can read SeePCB to learn about everything there is to do in our awesome town. SeePCB is a blog, just like PCBDaily and we’ll publish regular content all the time, just like PCBDaily (try 30 to 40 new articles each month) and we’ll include great pictures, video and, of course, very awesome writing about all there is to do in Panama City Beach. So, if you have an attraction, event, or shop or restaurant you’d like us to feature, let us know and we’ll come on out and write all about it. And, if you want to know all about what its like to ride a flat bottom airboat through West Bay or dine at Shan Kishi, come on over and check it out.
Many of you have noticed our new internet TV show all about real estate in Panama City Beach, The Beach Show. This was an idea that I’d been mulling over for quite some time (since last fall when I lost my job, frankly) and I finally took the time to get it going. We worked on the concept for weeks before we finally nailed it, and turns out, we’ve really hit on something. We’ve been flooded with emails and phone calls of both buyers, agents, and friends with nothing but great things to say – Thank you! I’ve been buddies with Karen for a long time, and she’s always been great with finding very hot deals, so we decided to team up to bring you these hot deals every week, on video.
If you are a Facebook junkie, or spend too much time Tweeting, then you probably know all about how all this works. If not, read on. In an effort to spread the word in different mediums and be sure that everyone can access our content in ways they feel comfortable, we’ve tied everything together and made it to where we can give updates on the run. First off, we’ve got PCBDaily (and all our other sites, for that matter) tied right into Twitter. Whenever we publish a new article, our Twitter account is notified, and Tweeted the article title and a link back to it. At this point, all of the “Twits” that are following us, can be notified on their mobile devices, or by email (depending on how they have their notifications settings configured) of new content being posted to the site. Many people ask me what Twitter is for, and I actually have a difficult time in explaining how everyone can use it, although I can pretty well explain why I like it. I would, however, recommend watching this 
The mobile population is growing, fast. In order to keep up, we’ve got a whole new addition to the PCBDaily offering – our very own mobile site. If you want to visit PCBDaily.com from your cell phone, just type in the normal URL, 
A recent ruling ended all pending legal actions against the airport as the United States Court of Appeals denied all legal challenges to the relocation of the Panama City Bay County International Airport. The legal challenges were brought upon by The National Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife and Friends of PFN, who argued against the FAA and Airport on January 23, 2008. Baring an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, all legal challenges should be over.
PCBDaily 