For the past two years Saltus students have spent their free time at John Smith’s Bay — cleaning, clearing and hauling garbage.

They were recognised for those efforts with a KBB Appreciation Award last night.

Nearly 300 of Saltus Grammar School’s students and their families and staff members have helped clean the Smith’s beach since it was adopted by the school in 2013.

“It was an initiative of the Saltus Green Team,” said Year Four teacher Erika Powell, who spearheaded the school’s involvement with the KBB programme. “Our school’s mission statement includes service to others and this is one way that we can use the Saltus family to achieve this goal. We chose John Smith’s Bay because the size of the beach is manageable and also because it is fairly centrally located for families to get to. Essentially we’re clearing trash, but we’re also cleaning up the shoreline, the beach.”

Two clean-ups are held each year. One in the spring and a second one in autumn as part of International Marine Clean-up Day. Volunteers from more than 150 countries are involved in the event which sees trash collected from beaches, oceans and shorelines around the world.

Said Ms Powell: “For this event, we are required to record all of the trash that we collect — everything from the tiniest pieces of plastic to bigger objects like old buoys. The Bermuda KBB office then sends our data to the US to be collated with data from other countries. This is part of a global effort to monitor the trash that washes up on beaches around the world.”

About 50 people have turned out for each clean-up day so far. They include Saltus students of all ages — from the lower, upper and secondary school.

The older students earn community service points for their hours of participation.

“It’s just amazing to see how it’s grown. Something that started out as a service to others, to see that 271 people in the last two years have helped out shows such great representation,” the teacher said. “It also shows how committed we at Saltus are to serving others.

“We have lots of regular supporters who come to clean-ups and they were very excited about the award and to be part of the Adopt-A-Spot team. The school is honoured to receive this award.”

Said KBB executive director Anne Hyde: “We have several schools that take part in the KBB Adopt-A-Spot programme. Saltus stands out because they consistently demonstrate their commitment, not only by coming out twice a year to clean up but involving students, teachers and parents and being enthusiastic about it.”

The school has also made a lesson out of the programme so its students better understand the importance of keeping plastics out of the ocean, she added.

“They’ve shown their students the importance of not only keeping Bermuda litter-free but oceans as well.”

Bermuda Paint owner David Swift, Bermuda Ocean Explorers founder Weldon Wade, Parks officer Craig Burt, role model Judy Diana Smith-Lee were also presented with Appreciation Awards along with Kay Latter, who founded Rock Watchers, the precursor to KBB’s Adopt-A-Spot Programme.

EY received KBB’s Environmental Partner Award, meanwhile the Catlin End-to-End was given the President’s Award.