A Morning on the Beach and 2,000 Pounds of Trash
The Inlet to Inlet beach cleanup was part competition, part community fair, and entirely the kind of thing that reminds you why people love it out here.
Volunteers spread out along Dune Road for the annual Inlet to Inlet beach cleanup.
There is no bad way to spend a Saturday on Dune Road. Meeting good people and spending a few hours cleaning up the coastline turned out to be a pretty nice way to spend one.
That was the premise behind Inlet to Inlet, an annual beach cleanup and community fair hosted by Relic and Dana Barrett Strong in Westhampton Beach. When Jack Fink of Relic reached out about capturing the day, I didn't need much convincing. I made the drive down Dune Road with the late morning sun already high, and by the time Oakland's Restaurant came into view I already knew it was going to be a good one.
More Than a Cleanup
Inlet to Inlet didn't start as a beach cleanup. It grew out of the Live Your Cor Foundation, founded in memory of Cory Hubbard. The foundation's mission was simple: pay it forward, help families in hardship, and leave things better than you found them. That spirit lives inside everything Inlet to Inlet does, even if the day looks, on the surface, like a really good local fair.
Relic's Coastal Collaborative Program is the engine behind the environmental side, turning a morning of volunteers and yellow baskets into something with real lasting impact. Dana Barrett Strong, a community effort rooted in advocacy and support for people living with paralysis, gives the event its deeper purpose. Together they've built something that feels genuinely local, because it is.
"Change can begin locally. You just have to show up."
Luca working the jetty, one bag of trash at a time.
The event sends volunteers across the full length of Dune Road, from Oakland's in Hampton Bays all the way out to Cupsogue in Westhampton Beach, covering miles of coastline in a single morning. Our stretch was what locals call the Bowl, tucked near the marina. We suited up in beach cleanup T-shirts designed and printed by Relic, grabbed our yellow baskets and gloves, and got to work with grabbers in hand.
My cleanup partner for the morning was Luca, an enthusiastic kid who took the mission seriously and reminded me every few minutes to make sure I liked and subscribed to his Instagram and YouTube channel. Hard to argue with that kind of hustle on a Saturday morning.
We worked our way down the beach picking up whatever stood out, then moved to the jetty where the real work was waiting. Digging trash out from inside the rocks is slow and unglamorous, but there is something satisfying about it once you get going. While picking up some trash myself, I was capturing content for the Inlet to Inlet team, giving them visuals to market the event next year. Events like this deserve to grow.
The Weigh-In
After a few hours we hauled everything back to the festival grounds, where the garbage was loaded onto a scale. The whole thing runs as a friendly competition and our team, the Garbage Gulls, did not exactly take home the trophy. But watching the pounds add up across every team made it clear the beach came out the winner regardless.
Hauling the day's haul to the dumpsters on the green in Westhampton Beach.
From there it was time to eat, and the festival delivered. The Happy Oyster Company was shucking, Fresh Made Pizza was on site, and a raffle was running with a signed Travis Kelce helmet as the top prize. The Relic team had their merchandise out, bouncy houses and a giant slide kept the kids busy, and a soft serve truck and dunk tank rounded out the afternoon in the best possible way.
Live music played through it all, and at some point it stopped feeling like an event and started feeling like one of those afternoons you forget don't happen all the time. The kind where you run into someone from high school, eat something good, and settle into the easy pace this part of the world finds in October.
Inlet to Inlet is the kind of event the East End needs more of: locally rooted, built on something meaningful, and somehow still a great time. I was glad to be there with the Garbage Gulls. If next year's crew is taking applications, sign me up.
To learn more about Inlet to Inlet or support the cause, visit inlet2inlet.org.