"We fight. We jump. We care.” You may have noticed this slogan on our second and third Jumping United expeditions - Croatia and Vltava. The Jumping United message carries more than just getting tramps to new places. Every trip helps in some way. In addition to tramps, we brought candies, crayons, T-shirts, and other useful items that literally put smiles on peoples’ faces to Uganda. If you have missed our video (which must be watched with a necessary pop-corn bag in your hand) you can find it under this link on our YouTube channel.
But let’s get back to our last two trips now. The Croatia and Vltava expeditions involved a plan to clean beaches, shores, and riverbanks. Contamination, ubiquitous plastic garbage and extreme amounts of waste produced already pose an environmental disaster. Human ruthlessness and laziness just amplify this situation. The next time you go shopping, to work, out to have fun, just look around and see how much trash there is, all over the place on the ground, in the bushes, rather than in litter bins. We would like to be optimists hoping that you won't find much of it. 😊
But it certainly wasn't the case of the beaches we targeted. You can see the post-clean-up condition of one of them in our video. Among other things, there are plenty of funny moments, so check out our YouTube channel again (a direct link is here). Thanks to our experience from Croatia, we started to notice even more all the waste around us while thinking about how we would follow up on our Croatian mission.
We all like to spend time on the water. Especially during the busy summer months. The Vltava River flows right through the city of České Budějovice (where the main office of Jumping Fitness is located), facing an onslaught of tourists/watermen not only from the Czech Republic every summer. This was clearly another destination for us! For three days, the basin of the Vltava river became the workplace for our Office team and also for part of our Master team. We packed work gloves along with the water sports gear, and instead of enjoyably floating down the river, we indulged in manoeuvres similar to those shown by professional sportsmen at the Olympics to harvest plastic, lost shoes, alcohol cans (empty and full) and much more.
While I am writing this blog, post-production of the video from the Vltava river is still underway. But you can look forward to seeing it soon! The weather was beautiful, so you can enjoy the ride through Český Krumlov or down the weirs with us. Plus, there's plenty of footage capturing our struggle with the water currents, sometimes just to get a few meters from the bank to collect the garbage. It’s a great feeling paddling like crazy in vain to get nearer to what you want to pick while being taken away by the current! Perhaps I should mention that we took the tramps with us on our rafting trip, too - but this goes without saying. 😊
Unfortunately, however, we have to say that we found an enormous amount of garbage on the riverbanks and in the river as well. In a few hours, we were able to fill up three boats. But I’d hate to end this post on a completely negative note. The campsites we stayed at, on the other hand, seemed relatively clean and tidy. Although they weren't exactly overcrowded at the time of our mission, they were tidy, and we liked that.
So thank you, if you've read through this post up to this point. Let’s all make the world a little better place. I mentioned initially that a lot of waste and garbage is the result of our ruthlessness and laziness. That’s why you can see garbage piling up everywhere around you every day. There are people who don't care, but let's be better than them and fight for a cleaner, nicer, and safer environment. Is there a piece of plastic on the ground, a can, or a chocolate wrapper that you can see? Just pick it up and put it in a litter bin. Sure, it's not always possible, but every single piece counts. You may inspire others in this way. Let’s join forces, let’s stand UNITED. Because we all together are fighting not only for a cleaner Earth for Jumping, but also for life.
We fight. We Jump. We Care. 💙🌎
