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“This is a life-changing activity you’re doing today,” Patty Donald told volunteers assembled near the Berkeley Marina Saturday, as they prepared to spread out and pick up garbage along the coastline. 

Donald, a naturalist and coordinator at the Shorebird Nature Center, warned volunteers the experience might be “sometimes horrifying,” as they encountered tons of plastic litter, garbage and other debris that collects along the East Bay shoreline.  

Still, she assured them, “It’s amazing what a group of people can do in three hours.” 

And for many of those people, there was nowhere they would rather have been on Saturday morning. In the wake of the terrorist attacks that shook the nation last Tuesday, many volunteers were anxious to undertake any activity that made them feel useful and took their minds off the horror.  

“I bet many people are happy to be out here today,” said Oakland resident Bob Moorehead, who joined his friend, Berkeley retiree Walt Rowson as they headed out over the area known