Desert Fathers Dispatch

I woke up today in great anticipation and humble expectations.  Of my ten Teen SOYO members, I was only expecting a handful to show up.  Most of them are involved in sports and had other activities planned before I came up with this idea.  The ones who said they would participate included my leaders; Frank Edens (former President), Jai Riske (current President), and Camron Moye (soon to be Orthodox).  My Teen SOYO assistant, Phil Riske, was on hand as well as my good brother and parish iconographer Jeff Edens.  To make matters even better, the Newport News Park Ranger on duty was former York River State Park Conservation Intern Lauren Ferrero.

We broke out the gloves and bags provided by Clean Virginia Waterways as Lauren gave us some trash grabbers.  The amount of trash was a bit daunting.  We filled up 17 bags of litter and estimated the weight to…