HOMETOWN HEROES: West Palm Beach woman working to keep our coast clean
PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — This Friday is Earth Day and it’s often celebrated with beach cleanups and other efforts to protect our environment.
But, this week’s “Hometown Hero” works to keep our coast clean every day.
Diane Buhler started her nonprofit, "Friends of Palm Beach" eight years ago after moving here to find an ocean that needed her, as much as she needed it.
“I needed to heal, and I needed to be by the ocean - that’s my happy place,” Buhler says.
After losing friends on 9/11 and supporting relief efforts at Ground Zero, Diane decided it was time to leave Wall Street behind.
The West Palm Beach resident has been traveling to south Florida on diving trips for decades, using the underwater world to escape the cares of the concrete jungle.
But it wasn’t until she was living here full time that she realized our slice of paradise needed protecting.
“When I moved here to heal, I found an ocean that needed me and animals that needed help because of the inundation of plastics and trash in our Atlantic Ocean,” Diane says.
That’s when she started organizing monthly beach cleanups with the help of the Solid Waste Authority.
But she quickly learned that wasn’t enough to keep up with all the waste washing ashore.
“We would leave a beach after one of those cleanups and the trash was still coming in with the winds and I realized then and there I needed to do more,” Diane recalls.
She officially founded her nonprofit, ’Friends of Palm Beach,’ in 2014 with the mission of cleaning our beaches one bucket at a time.
She also created a transitional work program, recruiting individuals from The 6Lord’s Place and VitaNova – agencies that help the homeless and aged out foster children land on their feet.
“This is a safe space,” Diane says. “It’s hard work and if you’re willing to show up and do the job, then I’ll keep you.”
Now, her small, but dedicated crew cleans seven and a half miles of Palm Beach’s coastline five days a week and works to educate the community about all types of pollution.
To date, the group has removed more than 230,000 pounds of trash from our shoreline.
“I had no idea the amount we were going to collect,” Diane admits. “I knew I was going to make a dent, but it's huge what we’re able to get and unfortunately it’s still only a small percentage of what is out there,” she goes on.
And it’s most rewarding, she says, to see her own crew making a difference every day.
“They’re gaining a respect and an education about the environment and the community they live in and they’re taking that back home and buying differently and cleaning up their world,” she explains. “We all need to lend a hand even if it’s something as small as picking up one piece of trash a day or five pieces a day – it all makes a difference.”
Be sure to check out my “Heroes” column in Palm Beach Illustrated, featuring Diane Buhler this month.
And let us know about the people in your community making a difference.
Send your nominations to hometownheroes@cbs12.com
