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A group of volunteers and students spent Saturday morning installing an acre of American beach grass at the North End beach.

Preliminary work for this event started in October 2011. The dune grass planting was a collaboration between the American Littoral Society [ALS], the Asbury Park Environmental and Shade Tree Commission, the Asbury Park Department of Public Works Beach Maintenance Department, the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium with the Asbury Park School District, Sisters Academy, Westside Community Center, and leaders and members of the west side of Asbury Park, according to Joyce Grant, founder of Citizens for Oceanfront Preservation.

As part of the Dune Grasses in Classes program, about 1,000 students in 10 area elementary schools cultivated their own American beach grass plants, then installed them in North End beach.

“It’s a way for kids to feel like they have an impact and can help restore a local ecosystem,” said Stevie Thorsen, ALS’s education and outreach coordinator.

ALS is a national coastal conservation organization based in Sandy Hook. It has been in existence for 50 years, making it one of the oldest conservation organizations in the country, said executive director Tim Dillingham.

Dune Grasses in Classes is in its seventh year, Thorsen said.

“Dunes are really important because they work as buffers,” she said. “When there is wind and a lot of wave action coming from storms, the dunes work as a big wall and prevent a lot of water and wind from coming up onto the land.”

Dunes would not exist without American beach grass, she said. The grass’s blades trap grains of sand, which fall to the dune below and help it grow. The roots extend deep into the sand and help hold the dune system together so it doesn’t erode due to wind.

“If we didn’t have American beach grass, we wouldn’t have dunes in New Jersey,” she said. “It’s a really important plant.”

But people and animals walking on the dunes are a threat to American beach grass. Also, other plant species like Asiatic sand sedge can grow rapidly and crowd out dune grass. ALS held another event in Sandy Hook on Sunday where they not only planted American beach grass, but also removed Asiatic sand sedge, Thorsen said.

At the beginning of Dune Grasses in Classes each year, Thorsen and other ALS workers give presentations to school children about the importance of dunes. Each child is given a plant, which they care for at home or in school for five weeks. The students who cannot attend the dune-planting give their plants to their teachers, and other volunteers plant them.

Another concern for ALS is the upcoming Bamboozle music festival, which will bring thousands of concert-goers onto the beach in Asbury Park from April 18 through 20.

To mitigate possible damage, the Surfers Environmental Alliance is donating fencing and the Asbury Park Youth Corps will erect four-foot-high fences around the dune systems. The installation of the fencing is set for Wednesday at 9 a.m.

There is also a contest slated to design signage, which will be erected prior to Bamboozle to instruct people not to walk on the dunes. That signage is being purchased through an anonymous donation to the city’s Environmental and Shade Tree Commission, Grant said.

These projects provide children with a chance to go to the beach, said Grant.

“I worked at the workshops and I had kids that live in Asbury Park say they’ve never even been to the beach,” Grant said. “We provided that opportunity. They came over and they planted their little plants that they had nurtured.”

Next year, all of the Asbury Park schools will participate in the program, Grant said.

For more information on Dune Grasses in Classes, email Stevie Thorsen at stevie@littoralsociety.org.

After the dune-grass planting, there was a rally to prevent a townhouse development near North End beach. For that story, click here.

Clarification: A previous edition of this story omitted the names of some of the organizations involved in the dune grass planting event.

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