Meet Arina Zhirkova | Founder and Organizer of Sunny Isles Beach Cleanup

We had the good fortune of connecting with Arina Zhirkova and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Arina, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
The most important factor behind my success is staying organized, up to schedule, and consistent. When you have those things, it becomes easier to guide groups of people. My goal is to make individuals happy and enjoy what they are doing. It takes me roughly 5 hours per week to work the logistics, organize, and plan the cleanup. This takes a lot of effort and dedication to lead beach cleanups as I must work out its location, time, as well as complete all the small, but important steps, to make my cleanup fun, successful, and impactful.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I began the weekly beach cleanups in August of 2020 because I saw how polluted my local beach was, and by going to cleanups myself, decided to take a stand and start my very own cleanup, Sunny Isles Beach Cleanup. This has truly become my passion when I first went to clean up in Miami Beach. There was so much trash, and I couldn’t sit idle in the face of watching the earth become more and more polluted. I had to step in, make a change, and act upon the issue. This motivated me to start my own cleanup in my city, spread the word, and get others to help because of how critical and damaging this is for our whole world. It also gave me an opportunity to revitalize the previously dormant Marine Science club with not over 50 members and become a part of the Green Sharks club as well as start a Project Get Green Proposal which focused on researching and weighing the outcomes of switching our schools’ plastic utensils to eco-friendly ones which are currently in progress. Some other big event that has occurred that showed the impact of my efforts is the WPLG Local 10 News filming a Don’t Trash Our Treasure segment capturing my cleanups, efforts, and myself which was aired in December 2021, to showcase my efforts, impacts, and unite the community. From this service project, the cleanups impact the world by bringing others together to socialize, make individuals aware of the pollution, and then act upon it. The microplastic that is on the beach is picked up, and not only does it make the world cleaner and prevent marine species and animals from ingesting it, but we can also use this to make jewelry. Some of the obstacles that I have encountered is working with people who are uncooperative and sometimes just come for the service hours. This can be very upsetting, especially knowing how much work, time, and effort I put into organizing this. On the other hand, there are way more people that are thankful, happy to help, and are very supportive. It can also be very stressful dealing with so many texts, planning, and requests. But at the end of the day, I realize how much of an impact I am really making and continue leading my cleanups as they are truly my passion which all started from a cleanup, I had gone to in the first place. This impacts the world, people around me, as well as the environment, making a significant change. Since 2020, my participant rate for my cleanup has grown exponentially (from 4 to over 40 people per cleanup). I have gotten many people in the community to keep track of my progress and cleanup events via social media; in a year, 800 people chose to tag along in my journey through Instagram following @Sunny_Isles_Beach_Cleanup.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my best friend would be visiting the area I would definitely go out to Sunny Isles Beach with her to enjoy the nice Miami weather, and chat. We would also go to the Miami area such as Wynwood and Design District, take some photos, and then go to a little matcha shop called Yoko Matcha. We would then have a nice dinner in a restaurant in downtown called Guy Kaku and then just walk around and talk.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My shoutout would definitely go out to my family and Sophie Ringel, the founder of Clean Miami Beach. She inspired me to make my own cleanups through me volunteering at hers. Regarding my parents, I am thankful for my parents and brother for supporting me especially my mom, who always pushes me to try my best and go above and beyond.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sunny_isles_beach_cleanup/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw-g1fskFPqoKtZfZSxQ4dw/videos

Other: https://www.local10.com/news/local/2021/12/01/teen-has-built-an-eco-army-to-clean-up-sunny-isles-beach/