Summer 2026 Recap: The Wildwoods Blueprint for Community Impact

There is something different happening on the beaches of the Wildwoods. It is not just the amount of trash being removed. It is the way people are beginning to look at the beach differently.

This summer, Love Blue Inc. completed its largest summer cleanup season yet in Wildwood Crest, hosting 14 cleanups between June and September. Across those cleanups, 203 volunteers contributed 406 hours of community service and helped remove 676 pounds of trash from the beach. But the numbers only tell part of the story.

The most meaningful change this summer was watching environmental responsibility become something the community participated in, not simply something Love Blue asked people to do.

A Cleaner Beach Starts With a Community

Throughout the summer, we began noticing something that is difficult to measure on a spreadsheet. Beachgoers were picking up their own trash.

People were bringing bags with them onto the beach so they could collect their own waste, along with pieces of litter they found around them. Families would stop to talk with our volunteers. People sitting in their beach chairs would see a cleanup taking place, get up, and join us. Children watched our volunteers work and joined in themselves.

These moments may seem small, but they represent exactly the kind of environmental culture we hope to build.

A cleanup should not have to mean that an organization arrives once a week to take responsibility for an entire beach. The goal is to create a community where everyone begins to feel some responsibility for the place they enjoy.

This summer, we saw more evidence that this mindset is taking root.

The Difference Is Becoming Visible

One of the most rewarding parts of returning to the same beaches week after week is being able to see change over time. Our volunteers have spent years working in the Wildwoods, and the difference in beach cleanliness compared with previous seasons has become increasingly noticeable.

Our cleanup stations have also become part of the routine. Rather than simply being pieces of infrastructure placed on the beach, they are being used regularly by beachgoers throughout the season. People have learned what they are for, how to use them, and how they can contribute without waiting for a scheduled Love Blue cleanup.

That is the kind of impact that lasts beyond a single cleanup event.

The ultimate measure of a cleanup organization is not how much trash it can pick up itself. It is whether fewer people feel comfortable leaving trash behind in the first place.

More Than Beach Cleanups: Investing in People

Another major part of the Wildwood summer was our intern program.

Over the course of the 6–8 week summer season, our interns were not simply helping pick up trash. They were learning what it takes to operate a community organization in the real world.

They experienced leadership, communication, time management, public speaking, hospitality, event coordination, teamwork, and problem-solving.

They learned how to interact with volunteers and members of the public. They learned how to represent an organization at community events. They learned that sometimes leadership means standing in front of a group and speaking confidently, and sometimes it means quietly making sure everyone has gloves, bags, water, and a job to do.

Most importantly, they were given an opportunity to lead.

That is an important part of Love Blue's mission.

We do not simply want young people to participate in environmental work. We want them to leave the experience with skills, confidence, and a greater understanding of what it means to take responsibility for something bigger than themselves.

The Wildwoods Became a Classroom

The summer also provided opportunities to bring Love Blue into the broader Wildwoods community. Our team participated in community events including the Wildwood Crest Summer Expo, connected with local businesses through the Greater Wildwood Chamber of Commerce, and continued building relationships with organizations and businesses throughout the area.

Those relationships matter because environmental progress does not happen in isolation. It takes municipalities, businesses, residents, visitors, volunteers, students, families, and nonprofit organizations working in the same direction.

This summer, that network continued to grow.

Local support helped provide financial contributions, in-kind resources, volunteer support, supplies, and opportunities for future programming. Partnerships with organizations including Sun Bum and numerous local businesses helped expand what Love Blue could provide to volunteers and the community.

The Impact Reached Beyond Wildwood Crest

While Wildwood Crest remained the center of Love Blue's summer operations, the impact did not stop at the Crest.

The Wildwood Chapter, led by Danya, hosted five additional beach cleanups during the summer. Those cleanups removed 330 pounds of trash, engaged 40 volunteers, and generated 80 volunteer service hours, representing more than $3,000 in estimated community service value using the State of New Jersey's volunteer service valuation.

At the same time, Love Blue continued developing its broader chapter network, supporting existing student leaders while helping new chapters prepare for the upcoming academic year. Old Dominion University officially approved a new Love Blue chapter during the summer, while CCU and Flagler leaders began preparing for the 2026–2027 school year.

The Wildwoods may be where our summer story was most visible, but the larger goal is to take what we learn here and carry it into communities across the country.

A Summer Made Possible by Our Community

A summer like this does not happen because of one organization. It happens because a community decides to invest in the work.

Love Blue would like to extend a sincere thank you to every business, organization, municipality, and community partner that supported our 2026 summer season. Whether through financial contributions, in-kind donations, supplies, food, equipment, volunteer support, or simply opening the door to a new partnership, each of these organizations helped make this summer possible.

Thank you to:

Borough of Wildwood Crest • OceanFirst Bank • Sun Bum • GPS Plumbing Inc. • Garbo Grabbers • Majestic Oil Company • Elks Lodge #1896 • Douglass Candies • Popeyes • Wendy's • Taco Bell • Morey's Piers • Cape May Ferry • FASTSIGNS • Promo Direct • Y-pers Inc. • Casino Pier & Breakwater Beach • Philadelphia Eagles • PrimoHoagies • Chick-fil-A • Shoreline Waste Solutions

We are grateful to every organization that contributed to making our summer operations stronger, our volunteers better supported, and our community impact greater.

Giving Back to the People Who Showed Up

This summer, we also wanted to recognize the volunteers who continued to show up week after week.

In July, Love Blue launched our Volunteer Loyalty Program, giving returning volunteers the opportunity to earn incentives throughout the month. Each week, volunteers could walk away with something different, from food and gift cards to coupons, giveaways, Love Blue merchandise, and other prizes. The idea was simple: doing something good should feel good, but the people who repeatedly give their time to their community deserve to feel appreciated, too.

Our volunteers weren't just walking away with the satisfaction of knowing they made a difference. They were walking away with something tangible that said thank you for coming back.

That program was made possible because of the generosity of the businesses and partners who helped provide the incentives and resources behind it.

Ultimately, the success of this summer was shared.

Our volunteers showed up. Our interns stepped up. Our community engaged. Our partners invested. And together, we made Summer 2026 our most impactful summer yet.

Behind the Summer

There was also a tremendous amount of work happening behind the scenes.

From June 8 through September 15, Love Blue's CEO, AJ Caruso, simultaneously maintained a full-time 9 AM–6 PM, five-day-per-week employment schedule while continuing to oversee Love Blue's summer operations.

During those months, Love Blue's work included 14 Wildwood Crest cleanups, five additional Wildwood Chapter cleanups, intern supervision, volunteer management, chapter development, fundraising, partnership development, community events, organizational administration, and the initial development of a future technology platform. The majority of that work took place outside of normal employment hours, during evenings, weekends, and personal time.

That schedule is worth mentioning not as a measure of one person's accomplishments, but because it reflects something larger about Love Blue at this stage of its development.

The organization is growing. Growth requires people willing to build, organize, lead, delegate, learn, and keep showing up.

This summer also marked an important step in that transition, with Gianni Magazzu being promoted to Chief Operating Officer and taking on additional legal, compliance, fundraising, and operational responsibilities.

The goal is not for one person to do everything. The goal is to build something that many people can carry forward.

What Comes Next

As summer comes to an end, the beach cleanups may slow down, but the work does not. The lessons from this summer will continue into the fall: the students who learned to lead, the volunteers who discovered a new connection to their community, the families who began picking up trash on their own, the businesses that chose to support local environmental work, and the children who watched adults lead by example.

Those are the pieces of impact that cannot always be measured in pounds.

This summer, we removed 676 pounds of trash from Wildwood Crest.

But we hope we accomplished something much bigger than that.

We hope we helped create a community that sees a piece of litter on the beach and feels responsible for picking it up. A community that understands that protecting the ocean is not someone else's job.

A community that leads by example.

And a community that knows that when enough people take responsibility for the place they call home, or the place they come to enjoy, the entire community changes.

Thank you to every volunteer, intern, beachgoer, child, family, business, community partner, and Wildwoods resident who helped make this summer what it was.

The beach belongs to all of us.

And this summer, the Wildwoods showed what can happen when a community starts treating it that way.