Presented by TRC Events
Work Fi Di Beach
Service Is the Celebration
First Shift Starts In
--
Days
--
Hours
--
Min
--
Sec
Two Calendars, One Word
America clocks out for Labor Day. Jamaica clocks in for it — Labour Day there, marked every May 23, has been a day of national volunteer service since 1972, not a day of rest. 63rd Street Beach runs that model on the American calendar date, and stretches it across all four days of the long weekend.
Monday, September 7 is the actual U.S. holiday. Every morning that weekend — Friday through Monday — starts with a shoreline cleanup and litter count. Every afternoon turns into a celebration: sound system, jerk food, and dominoes, free and open to all ages.
#WorkFiDiBeach
Two Traditions, One Beach
United States · First Monday in September
Labor Day
First marked by New York City workers in 1882. President Grover Cleveland signed it into a federal holiday in 1894, days after federal troops put down the Pullman Strike. It has since settled into America's unofficial last day of summer.
Jamaica · May 23
Labour Day
Established in 1960 to mark the 1938 workers' uprising. In 1972, Michael Manley rededicated it to national volunteer service — the first project cleared and beautified the Palisadoes Road.
The Shift
One day, two shifts — repeated Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Clock in for either, or both, on as many days as you've got in you.
9:00 AM – Noon
Beach Cleanup & Litter Log
Meet at the pavilion for gloves, bags, and a tally sheet. Work the shoreline in crews, sort what you find, and log it by category before it goes in the truck.
Noon – 8:00 PM
Music, Food & Dominoes
The sound system takes over where the cleanup crews leave off. Jerk pans, domino tables, and family activities run through sunset on the same stretch of sand.
Why We Count What We Pick Up
Shoreline cleanups along the Great Lakes have logged litter by category for over two decades — more than 14,000 cleanups' worth of data across all five lakes. Roughly 86% of what's collected in a given season is plastic, in some form, down to the cigarette butts and foam fragments that never made it into a bin.
We're running our own tally sheet on the same model: what gets picked up gets counted, by type, before it's bagged, fresh each of the four mornings. This isn't a formal partnership with any shoreline program — just borrowed practice. If this weekend's count is good, formal registration with an established Adopt-a-Beach program is the natural next step for next year.
Litter Log
63rd St.- Plastic fragmentsTALLY
- Cigarette buttsTALLY
- Bottle capsTALLY
- Food wrappersTALLY
- GlassTALLY
- Foam piecesTALLY
- Other / misc.TALLY
The Flyer & The Clip
The Site
The bathing pavilion behind 63rd Street Beach, finished in 1919, is the oldest beach house left on the Chicago lakefront. By 1960 the beach itself was a site of organized wade-ins against a segregated lakefront — a crew showing up to do something together, in public, on purpose, is a continuation of that history, not a departure from it.
63rd Street Beach
Jackson Park, Chicago, IL
Friday–Monday, September 4–7, 2026
Daily, 9 AM cleanup – 8 PM celebration
The P.M. Lineup
The gloves come off, the speakers go up — everything below runs all four afternoons, on the same sand as the morning shift.
Come for Either Shift
Free · All Ages
No registration required to walk up on any of the four days. We bring gloves, bags, sorting bins, tally sheets, and the sound system. Bring sunscreen, a reusable water bottle, and closed-toe shoes for the shoreline.