If East Main Street looks cleaner and neater today, you can thank a group of employees who work for the companies that operate the Hyatt Place, the L.I. Aquarium and Exhibition Center and the Sea Star Ballroom.
About 20 people — including some volunteers who work at the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation — donned orange safety vests and armed themselves with litter “grabbers” and garbage bags, then fanned out across East Main Street, from the hotel to Peconic Avenue, and along the Peconic Riverfront. They picked up litter for an hour and a half, stuffing about a dozen very large plastic bags with all kinds of trash.
Why’d they do it?
“It’s Earth Day,” Hyatt Place general manager Steve Shauger said with a smile and a shrug.
The vests and litter-grabbers were on loan from the Town of Riverhead. Riverhead Beverage donated bottled water for the workers, and Cisco donated food for a post-cleanup barbecue, Shauger said. The hotel organized a downtown cleanup on Earth Day last year, he said. This year it grew bigger with the addition of employees at the aquarium and banquet hall.
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