Paramus Elementary Student Inspires Classmates To Clean Oceans

PARAMUS, NJ — Several YouTube personalities inspired Jack Cleaver, a 9-year-old student at Ridge Ranch Elementary, to get fellow students involved in cleaning the world's oceans.

Social media influencer MrBeast posted a video where he cleaned up an entire beach with the group TeamSeas and a number of volunteers over several days. Another video by engineer Mark Rober encouraged kids to get involved with donating to TeamSeas.

Cleaver helped educate his peers about how pollution and human garbage are affecting oceans. Together, the Ridge Ranch students raised $1,000 — the goal Cleaver had established at the outset.

"I was really happy and grateful," Cleaver said in an interview provided by Bonnie Bibeau, the Ridge Ranch Elementary PTA President. "[The other students] actually understood the cause and wanted to help."

The money will remove 1,000 pounds of trash from the ocean through TeamSeas.

"I am proud that I reached my goal of $1,000," Cleaver continued. "It was definitely pretty challenging."

“If every school in America is able to have the impact that Jack did, our oceans would no longer be faced with a pollution challenge,” Bibeau said. “It’s my privilege to learn from Jack and help connect other schools to make this vision real.”