Essay Example: A Community Service Project on a Beach Clean-Up

Adsit (2011) defines community service as different types of tasks carried by a person or a group of individuals with the aim of raising awareness to the entire society through its accrued benefits. People in their immediate areas conduct most of the community services, and their participation is based mainly on volunteering. These programs usually post numerous benefits to a large number of people in the community including children, people living with different forms of disabilities, senior citizens, animals and the environment in overall (Sandmann, Thornton, & Jaeger, 2011). Beach clean-up events provide one of the most common community services that are carried out by different groups of people including religious organizations and learning institutions. In most case, this service is usually organized and planned through a local group such as places of worship, school, and non-profit organization.

Today, many people have begun developing their community service projects through privately owned and operated firms to generate profits as philanthropic organizations. Apart from cleanup activities, community service can also take the form of raising and contributing funds by donating used goods and selling property such as buildings and clothing. Most people who take part in community service do so because they enjoy helping as well as improving the status of their community. However, some students are required to do these activities upon graduation (Hoffman, Parker & Sanchez, 2009). This proposal describes different chatters and plans that will be put forward to carry out a successful beach clean-up activity at the Pacific Beach Conducted by members of the community living beside the beach with the help of XYZ University students.

Business Case

The chief aim of this proposal is to provide a proposed field trip to the Pacific Ocean to carry out a beach clean-up exercise by the community in collaboration with the XYZ University students. This area trip and the entire clean-up exercise will help in teaching students and the entire community at the Pacific beach on the significance of respecting the environment alongside addressing the challenge of litter and different types of trash as well as debris found on the beaches. Comparative studies identify littering as a huge problem that can be easily spotted at the beaches. Pollution and dirtying of the ocean have far adverse effects not only on the lives of the aquatic creatures but human beings at large.

For instance, the US Marine department issues more than 20,000 beach closures and swimming advisories to protect the health of beach goers across the country (Adsit, 2011). San Diego beaches mainly the Pacific beach is known with the issue of littering. This clean up is being proposed to not only make the beaches look nicer but also make them safer and healthier for all creatures that rely on them. Failing to clean-up these beaches will allow different forms of trash to remain on the shore, and can ultimately find their way into the ocean to harm a large part of the community. As such, carrying out this clean up will help in teaching young citizens who are quickly maturing into influential adults the importance of providing respect to the environment and empower them with the necessary skills that can help them be part of the environmental improvement teams.

This clean-up exercise serves as a critical step towards the development of the participants due to its ability to teach them the importance of being generous, proactive members of the society, and eco-friendly citizens at tentative ages. The exercise will also help the participants especially students to develop into adults who will remain vigilant and guard their environment as a way of maintaining their health status and improving their living conditions. This proposal outlines the challenge of litter on the beaches, the project charter, scope statement, team contract project management plan, and the staffing management plan. This proposal also provides the Grant Chart that will be used in the exercise, an effective communication plan; a risk-management plan and provide a succinct conclusion after looking at the administrative closure procedures that will be utilized as an indicator of the end of the project.

Project Charter

According to Hoffman, Parker, and Sanchez (2009), a project charter refers to a central document that plays a critical role in defining crucial information regarding a given project and used to authorize the execution of the same project. This paper offers a snapshot of where people are going, the reason as to why they are going there, individuals who will be affected by the project, the main risks to be involved, and the people going to help them carry out the entire exercise (Sandmann, Thornton, & Jaeger, 2011). For instance, it is important to ensure that the charter not only creates necessary information but also show the key stakeholders' shared vision.

In most cases, a project charter is created early in the lifecycle of a project before significant activities such as staffing occur to allow the business start running as expected. The document should be prepared in collaboration with other team members and shared with the organizational stakeholders upon its completion to be signed by the sponsors. Below is a sample project charter that will be used during the community beach clean-up exercise.

Project Charter: Pacific Beach Clean-up

Background

The Pacific Beach has numerous numbers of beaches that offer extensive recreational opportunities for both the students during their vacations and the entire community members living around the place. Different families and their friends usually spend their leisure time round on the shore while other have converted these beaches as the sources of their daily income through opening up of businesses such as hotels and costume selling. Nevertheless, this ocean serves as a home to millions of creatures that rely on it for their survival. These assertions provide valid reasons for the need to keep and maintain the beach and its shores clean. Ensuring that the beach is kept clean will not only improve its sanitary conditions but also safeguard the lives of its dependents while maintaining their health.

Adsit (2011) adds that trash has evolved into a major challenge at the Pacific beach due to its capacity to accumulate on their shores and water. Plastic is an example of this waste that causes multiple effects to the ocean life by slowly entering the marine environment and simultaneously photo degrading into smaller pieces often mistaken as food by the aquatic life. However, most of this creatures end up suffering and eventually dying because of consuming this plastic material, which obstructs different process such as respiration and digestion in their bodies. Additionally, cigarette butts have the effect of causing environmental pollution and affect the lives of the sea creatures that depend on water (Sandmann, Thornton, & Jaeger, 2011; Hoffman, Parker & Sanchez, 2009). Moreover, the lives of individuals who visit these beaches are also impacted negatively.

Goals

This project will be carried out with the primary objective of cleaning up the beach to make it safer for not only sea creatures but also humans. Two specific goals will accompany this goal;

To reduce the amount of garbage on the beach

To teach students and the entire community

The importance of keeping the beach and its environs clean by not littering them.

The power of collaboration between the community and different stakeholders such as University Students and NGOs through volunteering

Critical skills to grow into eco-friendly, kind, and non-littering adults

Scope Statement

The extent of this cleanup project is to ensure that sanity is restored among the community and different beach users to make sure that the Pacific Beach is kept clean and remains friendly to its inhabitants including aquatic lives and human beings. The project will be undertaken through the combined effort of the community members and the University students who would have made their field trip at the beach. As a result, the community members will network with the students to collect all the trash and other forms of litter around the beach into a central point before being collected by trucks provided by the sponsors for disposal at designated dumpsites.

Students will be required to develop simple messages, which will be printed on posters, and T-shirts issued to the community members to create awareness on the importance of keeping the beach clean. These messages will include cautions, warnings, and encouragements to those who will show vested efforts in maintaining the beach and its environs clean. Students will be expected to visit the beach from time to time especially on a quarterly basis to ensure that the cleanup project is made continuous and sustainable after the first exercise. These visits will continue for two years before leaving the entire project to the community members to ascertain its sustainability. For instance, the community members will be expected to form a committee that will be responsible for the continuous cleaning of the beach and ensure that the entire environment remains attractive to the visitors. One way of ensuring that this exercise remains favorable and benefits the community members is by setting up user fee for those visiting the beach and fines for those who violate the rules.

Key Stakeholders

This project will witness the interplay, collaboration, and networking of several key stakeholders from different disciplines to ensure that the entire clean-up exercise is a success and remains sustainable in future. Below is a list of key stakeholders who will take part in the execution of the whole exercise:

Name Position

Ezekiel Smith Project Manager

Sebastian Paul CEO Of Mari Beverage Company

(Sponsor)

Paul Lambert Technical Advisor

And Analyst

Michael Corson and Helen Moses Head of students and the Community members respectively

Gladys Mainz Head of Security

Project Milestones

As described in the statement scope, this project will be recurrent. The exercise will be taking place four times in a year for two years before leaving the entire project to Helen Moses who will, then select a committee that will ensure its sustainability for the rest of time. However, the first clean up will be conducted during the first week of September 2017 to create more awareness to the community on the importance of keeping the beach and its environs clean. The next clean up will be conducted during the first week of December 2017, and the remaining exercises resume in March 2018 as planned by the project manager and the sponsor. Project Budget

This project is expected to cost relatively higher in monetary terms. However, the benefits that will be felt will be worth the overall expenses incurred. This initiative will teach the community and the University Students a very critical lesson on avoiding littering their environment by allowing them to pick up the debris in a fun way that is deemed enjoyable and memorable. Additionally, the participants will be cleaning-up the beach that forms their living environment; hence, they will not only be improving the conditions of their surrounding but also protecting their health status against different health challenges such as diseases. As such, they will need three hundred gloves, masks, and gumboots for protection, buckets for collecting litter, one bus for ferrying them to the beach and two trucks for collecting the litter and transporting it to the dumpsites as illustrated in the table below:

Item Expected Cost

Gloves (300) $375.00

Masks (300) $400.00

Gumboots (300) $600.00

Buckets (50) $250.00

Bus...