SUMMERLEAZE beach was feeling the love on Valentine’s Day last Wednesday, as were many other beaches across the county, with Your Shore Beach Rangers’ latest project.

In honour of Valentine’s Day, February 14, the Your Shore Beach Rangers encouraged people, near and far, to get involved in their latest project, #LoveYourBeach day, that saw beaches all over Cornwall taking part in a huge beach cleaning event to create a big love heart at the end of it. People were encouraged to take photos of their beach clean hearts and post it to social media using the event’s hashtag, in an aim to create a huge social media campaign. Bude Cleaner Seas Project also got involved by encouraging people involved to use its hashtag, #ShowYourBeachSomeLove.

Recently, Year 7 students from Budehaven School had created a huge heart in the middle of Summerleaze beach as part of one of their beach cleaning activities. The activity sparked an idea in the team behind Bude Cleaner Seas, who thought it might be a good idea to spread the word beyond the walls of Bude and reach out to a wider audience — in conjunction with Your Shore Beach Rangers’ event.

Last Wednesday, a huge collection of people from the community in Bude gathered at Summerleaze beach to show their beach some love. Young or old, people picked up what they could find and created a giant heart shape, and spelt the word ‘BUDE’ in the middle of the heart in the sand. People taking part then took to social media with their photographs, using #LoveYourBeach and #ShowYourBeachSomeLove as the hashtags — and the conversation didn’t stop there.

People from beaches in Plymouth, Portreath, Brighton, Suffolk, East Sussex and as far as Pulau Padar and New Zealand all got involved in beach cleaning events, also taking to social media with #ShowYourBeachSomeLove to show what they had achieved on Valentine’s Day.

Zoe Gascoyne, who works alongside Deb Rosser in her ReFILL Bude scheme and is part of Your Shore Beach Rangers, said: “It was a great turnout considering the weather. Everyone who attended proved that the Bude community pull together and keep Bude clean, whatever the weather!”