The first bags filled quickly: bottles caught in reeds, pieces of foam, and the ordinary debris that gathers where moving water meets a shoreline. By late morning, the volunteers had moved farther from the launch point and started finding less obvious problems.

Organizers track what they collect because the patterns can point toward larger fixes. A repeated pile near a storm drain tells a different story than a tire left in the brush.

The cleanup is one day on the calendar, but the group is trying to make river care less event-based. They are recruiting small teams to return monthly and report changes between the larger gatherings.