June 2, 2025

Creating New Pathways through Collaboration

by Nina Sassano

Computer and mouse

About a year ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Laura Paolillo at a new employee welcome reception. She stood out immediately—gregarious, engaging, warm, and full of energy in her role as a Lecturer of Business at Ocean County College. At first glance, our connection may have seemed unlikely: a business lecturer and an outreach director from an environmental organization. But it quickly became clear that this was exactly the kind of collaboration we both had been looking for.

It wasn’t long before Laura and I were buzzing with ideas to get her students involved with the Barnegat Bay Partnership. I’m always eager to find ways to engage students outside of the sciences, and Laura is passionate about connecting her classes with real-world organizations like the BBP. So, we came up with a plan: her marketing students would step into the environmental world by developing mini-campaigns to help promote the BBP’s work.

Untitled Design 6 1024x1024
Students with the Marketing Club.

Laura leads the Marketing Club at Ocean County College, which gives OCC and Kean @ Ocean students interested in marketing, media, and design a chance to build skills through workshops, hands-on projects, and networking. I was excited to collaborate and shared our photo library -everything from field research and outreach to general b-roll – with the club. Using that content, students were challenged to learn about the Barnegat Bay Partnership’s mission, write a script, and create a promotional video. They worked in teams to bring their ideas to life – one of those videos is now featured on the BBP’s website and YouTube channel!

Barnegat Bay Blitz 1 1024x1280
An example of a promotional post created by Liana DeAngelis.

Not only did the BBP gain some fantastic promotional videos, but Laura also helped connect individual students with our team for more in-depth, credit-based experiential learning. One of those students, Liana DeAngelis, a marketing major at Kean University, went above and beyond during her internship.  Liana took initiative from day one learning new software, creating fresh content using the BBP branding guide, and helping to spotlight the success of the Barnegat Bay Blitz. She developed a social media campaign to highlight Blitz captains, personally reaching out to each one and crafting posts that celebrated their efforts and contributions. The posts that Liana created increased the BBP’s exposure and engagement with the Barnegat Bay Blitz, contributing to one of the most successful events yet.

Laura and I are already brainstorming new ways to involve the Marketing Club next semester, with hopes of building a lasting partnership with her students. The BBP extends a heartfelt thank you to Laura for her dedication to supporting nonprofits and to each of her students who contributed their creativity and hard work this semester!

Explore More Insights from Barnegat Bay

Dive deeper into the ongoing efforts to protect and restore our environment with more updates and initiatives that you can take part in. Check out our latest blog posts for valuable tips and insights.

View All

UNKNOWN

There is limited data available to quantify Wetland and Riparian Buffer Preservation, or updated data to quantify Wetland Acreage. The BBP has obtained funding and will begin assessment efforts for both targets, in the next few years.

 

 Hard Clam abundance has not been updated since 2012. Recovery of the stock will be guided by the Fishery Management Plan for Hard Clams, which is under development with the NJDEP, BBP, and other organizations. Reclam the Bay and other partners have continued to plant clams for restoration purposes. Continued plantings in strategic locations which maximize survival and reproduction is one strategy to pursue in the coming years. This work can use a model developed by Rutgers with BBP funding which identified areas where planted clams could have the greatest dispersal of their larvae and thus potentially maximally contribute to the recovery of the stock.

 Water Withdrawals were over the target in the 2021 report; USGS has not yet completed its latest update, so a definitive determination of status is not available. However, additional NJDEP data show that it is likely that we continue to not meet the target. Per capita water use has gone down, demonstrating the effectiveness of water-saving appliances and practices, but that decrease has been offset by population gains. 


IN PROGRESS

New maps quantifying Submerged Aquatic Vegetation extent were developed, but poor image clarity resulted in a high degree of uncertainty in the total acreage. NJDEP and Rutgers are working to resolve the uncertainty of these maps, and improve the total acreage estimate. Funding has also been obtained for further research and restoration activities. Several groups are developing potential restoration actions.

The USGS has completed the first phase of its study to identify minimum ecological flows in select Barnegat Bay tributaries. USGS scientists compared streamflow statistics between historical and current time periods to better understand trends in watershed flow conditions. This work provides a foundation for developing ecological flow targets in the Barnegat Bay watershed.  Similar to SAV extent, funding (approximately $450K) has been obtained by the BBP to complete the remaining phases necessary for threshold determination.

 

TARGETS ACHIEVED

No targets can be considered “Achieved” at this time.

 

NOT ACHIEVING

Several Public Swimming Beaches exceeded their safe swimming standards more frequently than during their baseline time period (2016-2018).

While most beaches are routinely safe for swimming, several problematic areas such as Beachwood, Hancock, Windward, and several lake beaches need track-down studies and restoration to pinpoint and address sources of bacteria.

Acres of Approved Shellfish Waters decreased from the last report. While this decrease was small, it represents a loss of previously approved waters. Similar to public beaches, track-down studies and restoration work are needed to pinpoint and address sources of bacteria.

 

Creating New Pathways through Collaboration

About a year ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Laura Paolillo at a new employee welcome reception. She stood out immediately—gregarious, engaging, warm, and full of energy in her role as a Lecturer of Business at Ocean County College. At first glance, our connection may have seemed unlikely: a business lecturer and an outreach director from an environmental organization. But it quickly became clear that this was exactly the kind of collaboration we both had been looking for.

It wasn’t long before Laura and I were buzzing with ideas to get her students involved with the Barnegat Bay Partnership. I’m always eager to find ways to engage students outside of the sciences, and Laura is passionate about connecting her classes with real-world organizations like the BBP. So, we came up with a plan: her marketing students would step into the environmental world by developing mini-campaigns to help promote the BBP’s work.

Untitled Design 6 1024x1024
Students with the Marketing Club.

Laura leads the Marketing Club at Ocean County College, which gives OCC and Kean @ Ocean students interested in marketing, media, and design a chance to build skills through workshops, hands-on projects, and networking. I was excited to collaborate and shared our photo library -everything from field research and outreach to general b-roll – with the club. Using that content, students were challenged to learn about the Barnegat Bay Partnership’s mission, write a script, and create a promotional video. They worked in teams to bring their ideas to life – one of those videos is now featured on the BBP’s website and YouTube channel!

Barnegat Bay Blitz 1 1024x1280
An example of a promotional post created by Liana DeAngelis.

Not only did the BBP gain some fantastic promotional videos, but Laura also helped connect individual students with our team for more in-depth, credit-based experiential learning. One of those students, Liana DeAngelis, a marketing major at Kean University, went above and beyond during her internship.  Liana took initiative from day one learning new software, creating fresh content using the BBP branding guide, and helping to spotlight the success of the Barnegat Bay Blitz. She developed a social media campaign to highlight Blitz captains, personally reaching out to each one and crafting posts that celebrated their efforts and contributions. The posts that Liana created increased the BBP’s exposure and engagement with the Barnegat Bay Blitz, contributing to one of the most successful events yet.

Laura and I are already brainstorming new ways to involve the Marketing Club next semester, with hopes of building a lasting partnership with her students. The BBP extends a heartfelt thank you to Laura for her dedication to supporting nonprofits and to each of her students who contributed their creativity and hard work this semester!

Contact Creating New Pathways through CollaborationContact Creating New Pathways through Collaboration
Computer and mouse