A Hero In Progress

Trait # 5: 

Trusting that your actions will make a difference

Chad Pregracke, also known as the “River’s Garbageman” has

dedicated his life to removing debris and litter from American

waterways. As a teenager, Pregracke worked as a commercial shell

driver and noticed the heaps of junk and debris in his local waterway,

which supplied drinking water to 18 million people in more than 50

American states. “I saw thousands of barrels, thousands of tires, cars,

trucks, and tops of school buses…. I got sick of seeing it and just

wanted to do something about it,” he said. With much persistence and

sincerity Pregracke spent that summer of 1997 cleaning a 35 mile 

long river by himself. He would pick up the junk, transport it by boat

 and sort it in his parent’s laws to be recycled . By the end of that year,

he had single handedly removed 45,000 pounds of trash out of his

local river.

Just to further demonstrate a small fraction of the effort he has made to make the world a better place to live in, during the past 15 years, Pregracke has pulled out more than 67,000 tires and  many other miscellaneous junk from various waterways in the United States, especially the Mississippi River. But that amount is just a scratching the surface of his dedication to cleaning up all the waterways across his country and the total amount of junk that has been intentionally dumped and littered. “The garbage got into the water one piece at a time, and that’s the only way its going to come out.”

Pregracke's cleaning project started off as a tough dirty job with solo effort but after several years, his energy, dedication, and determination won the hearts of many others  his cleaning project grew massively. The project currently includes about 70,000 other volunteers that have joined Pregracke to help him collect more junk and as of now, they have been able to collect more than 7 million pounds of debris. Pregracke states that the message he wants to bring upon people is much more than cleaning out the rivers and creating a more environmentally friendly place to live. He hopes to prove to others that anyone and anything can make a difference, even if it starts out small and slow. One's heroic action will be recognized for the difference that it can make. “If I had one thing to say, it wouldn’t even be about rivers necessarily. It would be about finding a cause that is dear to and taking action… Change is slow, like a barge or train, but once it builds momentum, its hard to stop.