Bear Creek Yacht Club, founded by Merced friends, keeps waterways clean

Some Merced residents who are passionate about the outdoors co-founded a nonprofit that focuses on cleaning up local waterways. Bear Creek Yacht Club members, often in kayaks, collect trash and debris from the creek running through the heart of Merced.

It all started after Merced resident and co-founder, Zachary Wells, 35, joined Mayor Matthew Serratto, and other volunteers, including Merced Walks, for several waterway cleanup events. Those events were successful, but the interest accelerated after Serratto and a friend took to the water in kayaks as they looked for more efficient ways to clean refuse from the creek.

“We just took a picture and posted it online as a joke, saying ‘This is the Bear Creek Yacht Club,’ ’’ Serrato told The Sun-Star. Wells and others they “kind of ran with it.”

The Sun-Star is putting the Bear Creek Yacht Club members in the Local Spotlight because of their work helping to clear Merced’s waterways of trash. Local Spotlight is our new feature that celebrates your unsung neighbors for their commitment to community.

A State Naturalist and Navy veteran, Wells described the Yacht Club as a collective of caring community members who recognize the importance of waterways. The club has been doing its work now for more than two years.

During a two-day cleanup in 2021, Wells said the volunteers collected about 40,000 pounds of trash from Merced waterways. According to Wells, some of the trash included shopping carts for businesses that haven’t been around for decades.

“Each time we come out, there’s less and less stuff to pick up,” he said.

Wells said he moved to the area around the time he was in kindergarten and used to walk along Bear Creek with his great grandmother when he was a kid. He spent a lot of time playing outdoors while growing up near Weaver Elementary School.

“There was something about the outdoors to me,” he said. “I didn’t have a whole lot of money growing up, but outdoors are free and that’s where I played and would stay all day.”

His connection also comes from taking backpacking trips to the High Sierras with friends. Before moving back to Merced, Wells said he lived in the Bay Area for about a decade. There were lots of opportunities to be in nature, he said, including through local parks programs. In Merced, he was looking for a similar experience and mission. He ended up co-founding the Yacht Club, which he says binds together people in Merced from all walks of life.

“Doesn’t matter where we fall on the political spectrum or backgrounds or anything,” he said. “We have teachers, former corrections officers, naturalists, accountants everything you could think of. But they all care about Merced. And that’s all we have to have in common.”

Wells said the group has been around long enough that people have started to recognize them and the impact on the local waterways.

“I think once they come out here and they see what we’re doing and they see us just goofing around and doing things just a little unconventional, they get it and most of the time they come out and join us,” Wells said.

According to wells, he estimates that more than 140 volunteers joined the group for a cleanup event during this past Earth Day in April. Wells said a youth choir came out to perform and joined in the cleanup effort.

Educational programs

In between cleanup months, the nonprofit runs educational programs for members of the community, which in the past has covered topics such as rain barrels or building a rain catch system. Wells said that on Nov. 4, the group will hold a session at 18th Street People’s Garden. They plan on discussing topics such as a rain gauge and weather station as well as understanding the seeding cycle of native plants.

Wells said that since focusing on the clean up efforts, he has seen more wildlife and people active in the local parks. Wildlife sightings along the area waterways include minks, western box turtles, toads and otters, he said.

“We had salmon runs viewed and seen for the first time in parts of this creek and parts of convergence of Black Rascal and Fahrens Creek,” he said. “While we are the Bear Creek Yacht Club, we work in all the waterways in and around Merced.”

Bear Creek Yacht Club co-founder and vice president Jeremiah Greggains, 49, said he contacted the mayor after seeing an online post about one of the cleanups. The kayaking instructor ended up joining Serratto, Wells and others during cleanups as they took to the creek in kayaks.

“One day on the creek, just the three of us, just kind of paddling around in the creek, (saying) man this is bad, this is disgusting,” he said.

Greggains said he grew up fishing and tubing in Bear Creek after moving to Merced around the time he was in second grade. Greggains said he knew the state of the creek had gotten bad, he just didn’t know how bad until he saw it up close.

“The excitement from the people of Merced about cleaning up this creek and making an effort, or at least some sort of effort to restore it to what people remember, it was just amazing,” he said.

The Bear Creek Yacht Club currently has more than 1,000 followers between Facebook and Instagram. Greggains said his time with the club working with other members of the community has been rewarding, and to some extent has restored his faith in humanity.

Bear Creek Yacht Club Secretary Rhonda Batson, 52, also has been involved with the group Merced Walks. She said she met Wells when he started coming to the organized cleanups and that it is through the cleanup efforts that she and others in the community have built numerous friendships.

“We’re all here for the same reason, common ground of just getting Merced to look better,” said Batson. “It’s just nice that people want to come together and help cleanup their city.”

Serratto said it’s great to see more people stepping up and taking leadership roles. According to Serratto, the volunteer cleanup efforts also benefit taxpayers, saving the city from having to hire workers to clean up the trash from the waterways.

Wells said the club wants to work with the East Merced Resource Conservation District and continue to work with Merced Walks as well as the county and the city.

“We want to revitalize this whole creek from end to end,” he said. “People are buying in and it feels good.”

If you have someone in mind who deserves the Local Spotlight, please send an email with your contact information to reporters Shawn Jansen at sjansen@mercedsunstar.com or Andrew Kuhn at akuhn@mercedsunstar.com and someone will contact you.

Read more at: https://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/local/article281318413.html#storylink=cpy

This story was originally published November 8, 2023 at 10:30 AM.