NEW JERSEY FRIENDS OF CLEARWATER

NJFC (a 501c3 organization) is an all-volunteer organization devoted to environmental education through activism, networking, sailing programs, school presentations, monthly meetings and our website. We hold an annual music festival which provides most of the support for our various programs. We serve all of New Jersey concentrating mostly on Monmouth County. Our county has ocean, lake, rivers and marshland all of which need to be monitored and cared for. Our festival brings together local and regional organizations with similar missions and provides a platform for the scientific proofs we share. Music provides the thread that binds us as we celebrate our successes and plan future strategic activities. We have had 500 to ten thousand in attendance at our various multi-day festivals over the last 50 years. Besides our environmental partners we usually have or have had in the past, children’s activities, historical displays, plant and tree giveaways, food vendors, craft vendors, veterans’ information, butterfly tent, boat building demonstrations as well as rides for attendees on our own boat built by volunteers named Pete’s Banjo. This is an homage to Pete Seager who founded the original Clearwater organization on the Hudson River over fifty years ago. Whether or not to charge admission becomes a question for us every year. So far, we have been able to support the festival through donations. Over 50 years ago, Pete Seeger realized a dream by getting the 106' Sloop Clearwater launched and spreading the word for a cleaner environment by word, music and action. The launch of the Sloop Clearwater was the creation of the organization Clearwater to manage, maintain, and bring that message to those without access to the Hudson River.
Popular folksinger Bob Killian brought a seed from Pete's endeavor which took root in the form of Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater in 1975.
Our current name, New Jersey Friends of Clearwater, reflects our goals, growth and outreach in this new millennium. NJFC will always continue its close affiliation with Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., as a Clearwater Sloop Club.
Our varied scope of activities includes: Clean-ups of NJ streams, beaches, and bays encompassing NJ and the Atlantic Coast line; organizing protests against polluters and bad corporate and government policy; water sampling and testing; an active environmental watchdog of New Jersey's air, land and water. In the current political climate and the administration which seeks to reverse the sacred Clean Water, Clean Air, and Endangered Species Acts and the demolition of the Environmental Protection Agency after all our hard work to attain these, NJ Friends of Clearwater commits to continue the battle along with Mother Clearwater and our network of like-minded environmental organizations to retain and extend our Fight To Keep Earth Great!
We research environmental issues for discussion and proper action. Clearwater must concern itself with issues such as: incineration, ocean dumping, toxic run-off, ozone depletion, global warming/climate change, environmental legislation, etc. Among the lingering problems is the lack of Environmental Justice where the poor, people of color, and aged suffer disproportionately to the rest of the population due to their lack of a strong voice and resources to fight. We fight that injustice also.
Music provides the thread that binds us as we celebrate our successes and plan future strategic activities. Our “Circle od Song” meets regularly and all are welcome to sing along or just listen and enjoy all kinds of music.
We are always seeking new members. We need people who are avid readers and listeners. This committee must keep track of local, state, national and global issues. All media as well as local town meetings, county planning meetings and state legislative meetings are just some of the territories we must cover to keep up with the issues.