More than 30 Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen joined local students to participate in a Maryland Fleet Week and Air Show Baltimore cleanup event at the Masonville Cove shoreline, Oct. 4.

Sailors assigned to USS Oak Hill (LSD 51), USS Milwaukee (LCS 5), Marines assigned to Camp Lejeune and Coast Guardsmen assigned to USCGC Eagle (WIX 327) worked alongside 17 students from Benjamin Franklin High School to collect 34 pounds of trash from the shoreline.

“This is the second of these events that we’ve had the fortune to host here at the Masonville Cove campus,” said Lorraine Andrews Warnick, director of the Masonville Cove Education Campus. “We’re very excited that doing these kinds of events may become a tradition. We enjoy being able to connect our local students with Navy personnel and folks who come into Baltimore.”

“We are constantly working with local students in Baltimore to help them understand that they make daily choices, big and small, that can have a large impact on their futures and communities. We want to show them that growing up and becoming successful doesn’t mean they have to move out of Baltimore, but rather there are things they can do right here to make their cities and neighborhoods a place they can be proud of,” said Warnick.

The Masonville Cove shoreline has 54 acres of land that gets inundated with litter and debris as a result of storm water runoff. The cleanup provided an opportunity for service members to interact directly with the children.

“My ship presented us with this opportunity and we were all excited to come out,” said Operations Specialist 2nd Class Diana Mila, a Sailor assigned to USS Oak Hill. “I was especially excited when I found out we were going to get to work with kids. I love kids and they were amazing to be around. The fact that I could make a positive impact on those kids and the community was fantastic.”

Service members shared their experiences about basic training and working at sea with the students.

“Having the military here helps the students connect with people who can share stories with them from when they were in high school, to where they are now in their careers and maybe pathways those students may not have recognized. The military can show them that there is a world bigger than their home and school, and that there are always positive steps forward that can be taken,” said Warnick.

Maryland Fleet Week is Baltimore’s celebration of the sea services and provides an opportunity for the citizens of Maryland and the city of Baltimore to meet Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, as well as see firsthand the latest capabilities of today’s maritime services.

Get more information about the Navy from US Navy Facebook or Twitter.

For more news from Naval District Washington, visit www.navy.mil/.