Annie Li, a 1st grade student at the Shaffer Elementary, was the 1st grade winner in the River Sweep Poster Contest. Her poster was one of 2,000 posters entered into the contest form the six states that border the Ohio River. She will receive a check for $50.00. The River Sweep is sponsored by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO). It is an annual, one-day cleanup project for the Ohio River that covers more than 3,000 miles of shoreline in six states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Thousands of volunteers participate in the event, collecting more than 20,000 tons of trash and debris. This year’s River Sweep is scheduled for Saturday, June 15, 2013. First through sixth grade students in Mrs. Pearson’s GATE classes participated in the poster contest. Each year, students in Mrs. Pearson’s River Watchers group participate in the River Sweep at the Nine Mile Run site in Pittsburgh. The poster contest was open to schools bordering the Ohio River and its tributaries to create an awareness of the problem caused by litter in our rivers and streams. Students in primary and secondary schools (public, private, and home school; K - 12) are invited to design posters for the River Sweep event each year. The posters reflected the positive outcome of pollution awareness and focused on encouraging volunteer participation in the cleanup. You can visit the ORSANCO web site at www.orsanco.org to see all the winning posters. The end result...we are all winners with cleaner rivers and streams!