Passport to Clean Water
Passport to Clean Water is an educational program which seeks to engage youth and their families about regional land and water stewardship in the Meramec, Missouri, and Mississippi River watersheds. Approximately 10 organizations from across the St. Louis region come together multiple times every year to offer conservation education for kids aged 6-14 following watershed clean up efforts.
Beginning in 2024, this event will be hosted 3 times annually at Confluence Trash Bash, Operation Clean Stream, and River des Peres Trash Bash.
Following each of these watershed cleanup events, our volunteer teams come together for Passport to Clean Water and a free picnic. Examples of past conservation activities include an Environscape demonstration, a water filtration demonstration, and a demonstration of the impacts of trash on wildlife via x-rays.
Join us for Passport to Clean Water on October 26th!
Passport to Clean Water and River des Peres Watershed Coalition Picnic at Deer Creek Park
This event is hosted in partnership with the River des Peres Watershed Coalition, Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, Great Rivers Greenway, and the EarthWays Center. Join us here on October 26th for Passport to Clean Water, an educational event where kids can learn about regional land and water stewardship in the River des Peres watershed. Deer Creek Park is located at 3200 N Laclede Station Rd, Maplewood, MO 63143 and the event will run from 11am to 2pm.
Thank you to our Passport vendors for their educational booths and to our volunteers who helped make this event possible.
How to:
Registration opens 4-6 weeks before the event on our volunteer portal. Click here to create an account, sign your annual waiver, and ‘fan’ the River des Peres Trash Bash program so you never miss an opportunity!
During the annual event, volunteers come together to help clean up the rivers and creeks within the River des Peres Watershed. Volunteers choose from multiple clean-up locations or storm drain marking sites each year. All clean-up opportunities have a site supervisor present to provide volunteers with supplies, sign-in participants and lead them through the clean-up of the chosen site.
All sites are given a grading scale to help you determine which location is best suited for each household for volunteer accessibility – Click here to view the Clean Up Site – Grading Scale.
Volunteers are the backbone of our clean-ups, and we need your help in our continued efforts to protect and preserve our land and waterways. We know your time is valuable, but everyone deserves clean water. Look at the difference volunteers can make if everyone gave just one hour of their time. We could remove tons of trash, create a better habitat for wildlife, and protect our waterways from pollution so that everyone can enjoy the benefit of clean water!
Volunteers are always encouraged to take pictures and share them on social media using the #RiverDesPeresTrashBash so that everyone can join in the fun!
Are you interested in participating in a future Passport to Clean Water event as an educator? Let us know you’re interested HERE! We will reach back out to you with more information about participating as an educational booth. Thanks for your support of clean water.
This year, we will also be hosting a pop-up Passport to Clean Water event during the month of October, so check back in for updates on that!
In the meantime, click here to take a look at some conservation activities you can do at home to learn about clean water and biodiversity.
Passport To Clean Water is presented by the Open Space STL in coordination with other environmentally-focused organizations in the St. Louis area.
This material is based upon work supported by AmeriCorps under Grant No. 19VSWMO006. Opinions or points of view expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of, or a position that is endorsed by, AmeriCorps.