CLEVELAND — William Whalen and the rest of his crew go out on two boats on the Cuyahoga River and harbors of Lake Erie four times a week to clean up debris.

“We just basically pick up anything that shouldn’t be floating in the water. Logs, trash, garbage, everything,” Whalen said.

Whalen graduated from the Davis Aerospace Maritime High School in Cleveland last year. He first began working on this project the summer after his junior year of high school. This project is a partnership between the Port of Cleveland and a nonprofit organization Argonaut, with the goal of helping students get opportunities that they might not have otherwise received. Whalen is grateful for getting to learn about this before he even graduated high school.

“I’m glad I started early cause it got me interested in it and now I can make a career out of it,” Whalen said.

Whalen is a now a full-time crew member on the trip boats that pick up around 300,000 pounds of debris each year. Jared Magyar with the Port of Cleveland said removing the debris from the water helps any maritime users.

“It’s a hazard to navigation, both commercial vessel traffic as well as recreation vessel traffic,” Magyar said.

Magyar said that there is a shortage of workers for maritime jobs, which is why they wanted to begin this program.

“It opens up opportunities for internships, for careers with the lake vessels or any type of maritime job,” Magyar said.

Although, Magyar said that it also helps students and graduates help their hometown.

“Teaches them pride in taking care of their city, their neighborhood. These are Cleveland school district students, the work they’re doing is impacting their own neighborhoods,” Magyar said.

It's something that Whalen is grateful for.

“I get to come home every day knowing that I actually helped out a little bit,” Whalen said.