Hands Across The Sand

On Saturday, June 26 those against oil drilling off Florida's coast will join hands on the beaches in protest

Saturday, June 26, 11:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Miami Beach meeting points: 13th St. and Collins Ave., 50th St. and Collins Ave., 79th St. and Collins Ave., 96th Street and Haulover Inlet

Key Biscayne meeting point: Key Biscayne Dog Beach - After the toll, keep right and straight until you U-Turn Under the bridge, then keep going straight to The Dolphin Foundation Adopted Area to the right (before the toll exit). Seek out Mermi The Mermaid.
Florida Hands Across the Sand official website

By Michelle Rada6/22/2010

Wearing black outdoors is taboo during South Florida’s oven-like summer days. Oddly enough, black will be the color of choice for this weekend’s beach-goers - at least for the environmentally friendly ones.

On Saturday June 26, The Dolphin Foundation will team up with Hands Across the Sand to give you a good reason to wear a heat-absorbent hue under the 100-degree sun: oil drilling.

Hands Across the Sand is an international organization that is bringing together countries worldwide, from Iceland to Spain, to join hands along coastlines. Participants are asked to wear all black and keep their hands tightly knit for the 15-minute, photo-friendly gathering. As if getting people to hold hands wasn’t enough, Hands Across the Sand stands with two founding messages: ‘no’ to offshore oil drilling and ‘yes’ to clean energy.

With the recent oil-spill fiasco, South Florida has become a hotbed for activism (recall the Miami World Naked Bike Ride) – and Hands Across the Sand is dipping its sandy fingers into the action. Green-friendly hand-joining sessions will be held in both South Beach and Key Biscayne this year, alongside other Florida locations.

Ellie Powers, the coordinator for the Key Biscayne event, describes it as a highly relevant gathering through which “everyone is going to join hands, from housewives to students to carpenters to CEOs, to say ‘no’ to oil drilling along the coast – and ‘yes’ to clean energy.”

Powers explains that the issue of oil drilling is particularly relevant to South Florida, and the Hands Across the Sand gathering will be a way to express the desire to evade a catastrophe like Louisiana’s. "Renewable energy for our future is something to look forward to. "We need to look for more natural means, and to [temporarily] have oil drilling away from our oceanic ecosystems.”