The
M.A.R.S.H.
Project
The M.A.R.S.H. Project is a grassroots and community-based program working to revitalize and advocate for our pluffy ecosystems in Charleston, South Carolina. We provide unique and collaborative opportunities to care for our marshes.
We started T.M.P. as a personal project among three friends. We wanted to see if we could revitalize and steward one-acre of marsh on the peninsula. We were all new-ish parents at the time and wanted our little ones to experience this with us. After hosting a cleanup of the area, which drew out about 50 volunteers, we realized our community was itching for more restorative efforts.
We are proud to share that, as of April 2023, we have become a program of the Carolina Ocean Alliance, a 501(c)3 nonprofit. With their help, T.M.P. is working to ecologically revitalize their neighborhoods through volunteer efforts – cleaning up debris, planting native plant species, art programs, citizen-science monitoring, and community and educational outreach.
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Our mission is to help to rewild and ecologically restore Charleston’s unique saltmarsh ecosystem.
We believe humans are part of a larger living community that collectively enables life. As members of this living system, our goal is to create more life with our own, contributing generously through reciprocal acts of stewardship and the thoughtful ecological restoration of our living landscapes.
We acknowledge the interconnectedness of all life and seek to increase its overall abundance.
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The marsh rewards the patient observer. Living near Halsey Creek, T.M.P. fell in love with their neighborhood waterway and began to understand its significance— its vibrant ecology, fascinating history and the delight in just squishing about the pluff.
Halsey Creek, located in the neighborhood of Wagener Terrace, has both great ecological value and historical significance. Residents of Charleston are surrounded by a vibrant and dynamic salt marsh ecosystem—one of the most productive ecosystems in the world. Our marshes mitigate storm surge and sea level rise, host a phenomenal amount of life, cleanse upstream water before it empties into the ocean, and provide habitat for an untold number of birds migrating along the Atlantic Flyway.
