Meet Madeline Bracken!
It was an invitation to a birthday party that first took Madeline Bracken to White Rock Lake Park. A recent transplant to Dallas, Madeline had discovered Bachman Lake but was unaware of the jewel of the town located in the heart of East Dallas. Having already fallen in love with the vibrant wildflowers, her trip to White Rock Lake sealed the deal and convinced her that Texas was a place where she could live and call home.
Madeline’s upbringing included the practice of recycling and the importance of leaving a small environmental footprint. An avid cyclist, Madeline is used to using a bicycle as her primary mode of transportation. The lack of a strong cycling infrastructure soon convinced her that to navigate Texas, she would need a car. To offset the impact of car pollution, Madeline made a promise that she would put her new minivan to good use by engaging in recycling and clean-up activities whenever possible. Wanting to make a meaningful contribution to her community, Madeline set a personal goal of collecting one million pieces of garbage over the course of her life. Madeline set her garbage collection goal two years ago and has already collected over 100,000 pieces of trash on her own.
Concerned about the source of plastic pollution in White Rock Lake and the impact it has on the ecosystem, Madeline contacted For the Love of the Lake in February 2023 to schedule a clean-up date for her group at White Rock Lake Park. On their first clean-up day at the Big Thicket, the group fell in love with the area and determined that with five people going out once a week, they could work their way around the entire shoreline of the lake in a year’s time. Equipped with trash grabbers, bags, trash sifters, boots, rakes, shovels, and scales for weighing the trash bags, Madeline and her litter-grabbing companions have come to the park every Monday in March and April and have collected 2,872 pounds of trash from the shorelines of White Rock Lake. Madeline said she is just a woman with a minivan, doing her best to be a force of good in the world, one piece of trash at a time.
Inspired by Madeline’s story? Don’t forget to sign up and join us on May 13 for our monthly Second Saturday Shoreline Spruce-Up event!
