You could say Latter-day Saint Mark Rober is a person of influence: he has over 20 million subscribers on YouTube and his videos have a combined total of over 2.4 billion views. And while you may know him best for his glitter bomb prank or his 15-ton pool of Jell-O, Rober also uses his influence to do good around the world; he has raised awareness for autism, and last year he gathered people around a project that planted over 2 million trees.
And this year? His desire to do good is even more ambitious.
Rober is now joining forces with other YouTubers to reach his newest goal: cleaning up 30 million pounds of trash from the oceans in a project he has dubbed “Team Seas.” And if that wasn’t ambitious enough, he plans to do it all by the end of the year.
“With all the division in the world, this just feels like something we can all see eye to eye on. Everyone agrees that trash and plastic don’t belong in our beautiful ocean,” Rober says in a video explaining his project.
Rober is partnering with two nonprofits, Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup, in this mammoth effort. For every dollar donated, the nonprofits will remove one pound of trash from the ocean. To help get the word out, Rober and his team have reached out to thousands of social media influencers around the globe, including Olympic silver medalist and fellow Latter-day Saint MyKayla Skinner.
“I am Team Seas!” Skinner says while wearing a Team Seas hoodie in a recent video on her channel.
Rober launched Team Seas just five days ago on October 29, and already over 12 million pounds of trash have been removed from the ocean. In an interview about the project, Rober said while they’ve received donations of over $1 million, the average donation is around $5, showing that when enough people are successfully rallied around a cause, the results can be staggering.
“We can be a catalyst for positive change in this world,” Rober said. “I am just so stoked; we’ve totally got this.”
To see the progress of the project, check out teamseas.org.
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