30-04-2025
New Haven students have animals in mind during Lighthouse Point beach cleanup
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — If you are heading to the beach on this sunny Wednesday, the sand at Lighthouse Point in New Haven is now a lot cleaner. Students at a local magnet school spent their morning picking up garbage, but they were doing so to benefit the animals, not humans.
Bit by bit, the beach Lighthouse Point got a lot cleaner thanks to the students of Benjamin Jepson Magnet School. For weeks, they've been learning about marine animals and the challenges facing them.
Sea turtle at Mystic Aquarium gets prosthetic harness to help him swim
'I don't want them to die just because of plastic, so we decided to help Mystic Aquarium a lot of money so they could help out,' Jepson seventh-grader Domenica Leon said.
The school raised $3,800 for the animal rehabilitation program at Mystic Aquarium.
'Cleaning up our beaches, getting that marine debris off the beaches is one of the things that is really going to help animals that are in Long Island Sound,' Shelagh Smith, a program specialist at Mystic Aquarium, said.
Cleaning up a beach is always good work, but there's also a good reason this school chose to learn about marine wildlife and their environment. A high-profile visitor to New Haven earlier this year really sealed the deal.
Chappy, a seal found on a New Haven street, dies at Mystic Aquarium
In the middle of February, a baby seal ended up in the middle of Chapel Street. They named him Chappy and took him to Mystic Aquarium. Unfortunately, he was sick and didn't last long, but he had a big impact on the Elm City.
'Since Chappy the seal came up here, we were very confused by that and we wanted to research why that was happening,' eighth-grader Zaria Reyes said.
'So, every year we do a Jepson day of justice, and we pick a cause that we'd like to learn about and raise money for,' explained Jepson Magnet Resource Teacher Barbara Wickwire. 'We were definitely inspired by the story of Chappy because he was basically in the backyard of our school.'
Chappy was just one of many and many kinds of animals that Mystic tries to nurse back to health.
'A lot of work at trying to get those animals healthy again and re-released back out into their natural habitat, and while we do that, we can collect amazing information,' Smith said.
The hope is fewer animals will need help with less garbage on the beaches and in the water of Long Island Sound.
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