On a gorgeous Saturday earlier this month, six East Hampton Middle School students gathered at the town’s shellfish hatchery on Three Mile Harbor to do some good — gluing eelgrass seeds to clams. It’s the latest project the Do Good Be Good Club has taken on this year, under the direction of David Cataletto, a sixth-grade teacher who started the group last year.
“We help out from Montauk to Wainscott, all over East Hampton with beach cleanups and eelgrass seeding, and we build oyster reefs,” said Mr. Cataletto, who is also an East Hampton Town trustee. “We do a lot of different kinds of community service programs. We help our community and we help students feel good about it. Hopefully, that will be a catalyst for more civic and community service in the future.”
The club has over 50 members who spend a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays connecting with friends and giving back.
“We’ve done the Largest Clam Contest, beach cleanup, and a whole bunch of other activities,” said Nicholas Yang, a sixth grader in the club. “When we want to go to the beaches we don’t want to see a barren wasteland full of garbage. Lots of animals and creatures live there and we want them to thrive.”
The kids have had so much fun this fall that some of their parents now join in too.
“Giving back to the community keeps our nature thriving and people love coming back for that,” said Chen Yang, David’s dad, looking out on the water. “It’s amazing. It’s beautiful today. We love it.”
So why, on this particularly beautiful day, were they gluing eelgrass seeds to clams?
“It’s a mimic of what happens in nature,” said Robert Vasiluth, the founder and C.E.O. of Save Environmental. He’s been leading workshops to help engage the next generation of eco-conscious Long Islanders. “In nature, a clam would bury itself and these seeds would be on the sea floor. When the clam digs a hole, the seed that falls into that hole grows. So this is a mimic of what works in nature, making it a nature-based solution for how to grow eelgrass from seed, which is a 30-year or longer problem we’ve been having here in New York.”
The Do Good Be Good Club was more than happy to help solve that problem. Its members were thrilled that a few hours of maritime arts and crafts could make such a difference. “You can glue shells to seeds apparently,” said Sam Duda, a sixth-grade student, in amazement. “It’s pretty crazy and it helps clear the waters. The water looks so foggy now and it used to be so full of fish and I just want to clean it.”
Mr. Vasiluth spent over a year developing ways to bring eelgrass back to Long Island. The grasses provide oxygen, sequester carbon, and act as a nursery and attract dozens of species of fish to local waters. “Eelgrass meadows are the foundational habitat in the shallow sea in our neck of the woods,” he said. “In the Peconic we see that the scallops are all gone and the ones that are left are getting diseases and dying. But what people don’t really talk about is that the eelgrass meadows are disappearing at 10 percent a year in the Peconic. As the eelgrass disappears, so do the scallops.”
Mike Berrezueta, a sixth grader who loves to fish with his father, was happy to help save the ecosystem and improve the local catch. “If the plants grow healthy that means the bass, the blackfish, and the porgies will come back, so that’s a win-win for us.”
Natalie Petykowski, a seventh grader, participated in the eelgrass seeding project last year and had so much fun she wanted to come back. “It’s good for the environment and I also like doing it to have something to do on Saturdays. This is my favorite [project] to do.”
This year, the group hoped to glue some 5,000 seeds onto 1,000 live clams, a great opportunity to bring some much-needed marine life back to our harbors. “I’ve always wanted to make a difference for the waters,” said Alisson Orellana, a sixth grader, “But I’ve never had a chance to do it.”
The Do Good Be Good Club meets on weekends throughout the year. Interested East Hampton middle schoolers should reach out to Mr. Cataletto. Organizations with potential projects for the club can contact East Hampton Middle School at 631-329-4100.