Barefoot Wine's Beach Rescue, an ongoing/long-running national campaign, typically involves a local partnership with Surfrider, who provides message buzz to potential volunteers, beach infrastructure, and clean up savvy (& gear). Our most recent collaboration in 2011 was a success, featuring Brett Dennen in the after party. This year's event, despite the dire weather forecast, turned into a pretty decent beach day, with enough sun to send some of us into the 58 degree lake to cool down, plenty of eager volunteers collectively scrubbing Oak St. Beach to its core, and then the extreme musical talents of Lee De Wyze afterwards—which all of us thoroughly enjoyed. (We saw some trembling girls sobbing tears of joy as he crooned to them from about five feet away) Despite the great, downtown location, we may have to rethink Oak St. in the future since it is a well-attended plot of sand (i.e. cleaned daily by paid workers). Going forward we'll be more sensitive to neglected beaches (not on the Gold Coast?) that really need cleaning. Anyhow, a great kick off to Surfrider Chicago's summer event schedule. The Barefoot Wine crew, with their local Hunter PR operatives, was a fun bunch (friday night @Adobo a delight).
