Partners for Clean Streams would like to highlight a group that made a huge impact for this year’s Clean Your Streams Day. The Teen Outreach Program (TOP) won the Youth Challenge of Most Volunteers with 67 volunteers. TOP is a service learning group, facilitated through the YWCA of Northwest Ohio comprised of young men and women of the Toledo Public High Schools: Bowsher, Rogers, Scott, Start, Waite, and Woodward. The students have many talents and interests and are extremely giving to the community. Last year alone TOP students achieved over 4,000 volunteer hours in various service projects from cleaning the environment, to childcare, working with the elderly, packing food baskets for the needy, and advocating for tolerance & diversity at the Annual Martin Luther King Day celebration at University of Toledo – to list a few. The teens were happy to make ‘Clean Your Streams’ their kick-off project for the 2012-2013 school year. The students regarded this project as a great adventure while helping to beautify their community, specifically the Ottawa River watershed where they were stationed. All the students expressed a major interest in contributing their time and effort for next year’s clean-up. They are excited to challenge themselves to increase the amount of trash collect next year. The students commented that because of their experience with Clean Your Streams, they have a better understanding of where their drinking water comes from and that the responsibility to keep litter and pollution out of our waterways is both a local and global job. Some of the interesting things they collected were: a sleeping bag, deer bones, and a soccer ball. We look forward to seeing the TOP again next year!