College students spending spring break by a body of water is nothing new. However, through an “alternative spring break” program, Illinois-based nonprofit Living Lands & Waters made such a trip an opportunity for students to learn about and clean up that body of water instead of simply sunbathe beside it. 

Throughout March, 140 volunteers from 14 universities joined the crew of Living Lands & Waters at McKellar Lake in Memphis to remove 131,419 pounds of trash. 

For Roslin Johns, an environmental science major at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, she returned to take part in the program for a second year after remembering a fun-filled and fulfilling time spent on the water. 

“They just make it such a fun experience,” Johns said. “At the end, I leave feeling good not just about myself, but what I did for the environment and I had fun doing it.” 

Living Lands & Waters is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1998 by Chad Pregracke. While living and working on the river around his home in East Moline, Illinois, Pregracke was disturbed by the immense amount of debris he saw dumped into the rivers. 

Expanding greatly from the once one-man mission, Living Lands & Waters now has a full-time staff with a fleet that includes four barges, two towboats, five workboats, two skid steers, an excavator, six work trucks and a crane. 

The history of the organization is visually present in every room of the barge where they work and live. In the classroom space, one wall is filled from top to bottom with toys found within the rivers during cleanups. On the ceiling, hundreds of lighters removed from their watery grave have been turned into a multicolored art piece and signs lost to the waves decorate the walls. 

Since its founding, Living Lands & Waters has removed more than 13 million pounds of trash from America’s rivers with the help of over 135,000 volunteers. 

The crew of Living Lands & Waters, who spend 6 to 9 months of the year living on one of the barges as they travel across 28 rivers in 25 states to host river cleanups, workshop classes and further conservation efforts, are no strangers to McKellar Lake. 

Since 2010, the crew and volunteers have removed more than 1.8 million pounds of trash from the lake. 

“There’s always a need,” Callie Schaser, programs manager and communications specialist with Living Lands and Waters, said about McKellar. “It’s a great place to bring a ton of students and get a lot done and then we fill up the barge in three weeks.” 

Due to the fast speeds of the Mississippi River, the crew can’t operate on the river itself for cleanup efforts. However, cleaning up McKellar Lake removes trash that inevitably will make its way into the Mississippi and possibly all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. 

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“McKellar Lake acts as this little net for us to catch everything and trap everything,” Schaser said. 

In removing trash from the lake, trash that made its way there from the streets of Memphis and Nonconnah Creek, Schaser said the students are reacting to an issue. While this is important, she and Living Lands & Waters hope that they return to their community knowing they can impact their community before trash ever makes it to a river. 

“This is reactive, but you guys can be proactive around your campus, around your hometown,” Schaser said. “Anything you see, if it’s near a storm drain and it’s on the ground that’s going in there and that’s going in the water.” 

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‘Mighty Mississippi is 2,300 miles of opportunity’

In bringing students to the river, Living Lands & Waters doesn’t want to only focus on conservation efforts. Through their Mississippi River Institute, they also hold workshops for students to learn all the occupational possibilities living near the Mississippi can offer. 

Separate from the barges they use in their trash-collecting efforts, Living Lands & Waters has built a second classroom barge, constructed from and decorated with recycled material, of course. This classroom barge is used to teach students how they can pursue one of the many careers the river can offer.

The program, which is traveling down the Mississippi River, offers workforce development programs and STEM-related jobs near riverfront cities, such as Memphis.

“We’re hoping to showcase the mighty Mississippi is 2,300 miles of opportunity,” said Rachel Loomis, the Mississippi River Institute manager. 

Soft launching in 2023, the institute had its first full year in 2024. In the spring and winter of 2025, the institute has been docked near the Mud Island Marina in Memphis to host workshops. After May 9, the institute will head to St. Paul, Minnesota, for its winter location. 

In a workshop on March 26, AP biology and health sciences students from White Station High School heard from employees of Wepfer Marine Inc., a tugboat company that operates out of Memphis and along the Mississippi, and from a commercial fisherman. The students were then able to tour one of the tugboats and ask questions of the captain and crew as they learned about what it’s like to live aboard the ship for weeks at a time. 

“Today is about a day of exploration,” Loomis said to the students during the workshop. “If you’re not able to know about these jobs, you’re not able to pursue them.” 

For the crew of Living Lands & Waters, there is an inseparable link between their tenets of protecting the river and working with and on it. 

“We have to respect the river before we learn how to make money on it,” Loomis said as one of the main lessons she hopes students take away from the workshop. 

Chris Day is a photojournalist at The Commercial Appeal. Contact him a cjday@gannett.com.