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The sea has
friends here.
Rooted in the coast, built by the community.
Sea Friends Incorporated is a Freeport nonprofit protecting Long Island’s bays through native plantings, restoration, and hands-on education. We partner with schools, community groups, and landowners to put more native habitat in the ground across the South Shore.
Every drop of rain that falls on land is headed for the bay.
What it carries when it gets there is up to us.
Off a lawn or a driveway, stormwater moves fast — picking up nitrogen and sheeting into a storm drain in minutes. The Western Bays it drains into have already lost their eelgrass. What that nitrogen feeds now is Ulva, the green macroalgae that blankets the shallows, and the low oxygen that follows it. It also weakens the salt marsh islands standing between this village and the next storm surge. Run the same rain through deep native roots and it slows, soaks in, and leaves the nitrogen behind.
So we plant. With schools, neighbors, and local partners — putting deep-rooted Long Island natives back in the ground, rebuilding the habitat monarchs and pollinators lost along the way, and teaching the community why a patch of milkweed matters to a body of water.
How we help
Native plantings have a reputation for looking wild. Ours don’t. We choose species to fit the goal — habitat, stormwater, pollinators, or simply a garden worth sitting next to — and design the planting to be tended and intentional. Whether you’re a school, a homeowner, a municipality, or a land manager, that’s what we bring.
Native Gardens & Waystations
We design, build, and plant native habitat with schools, community groups, and neighbors — like the certified monarch waystation now growing at Freeport High School.
Restoration & Planning
We assess sites, remove invasive species, and design native planting plans — from a backyard lawn conversion to a community space or a stretch of public land. Invasive work runs the whole arc: correct ID, the right removal method for the species and the site, follow-up treatment coordinated with licensed applicators where needed, and native replanting so the ground doesn’t just get re-invaded.
Native Plants, Grown Local
We grow Long Island ecotype natives — propagated from local seed — and share them through community plantings and giveaways, putting the right plants back in local soil.
Education & Workshops
We run hands-on programs on native plants, pollinators, and coastal ecology for students and neighbors. Restoration sticks when people understand it.
Our work is led by a Certified Professional Horticulturist with more than 15 years in horticulture, conservation, and ecology. More about us →
Don’t see your project here?
The best ones usually aren’t on the list. Tell us about your project — that’s where every one of these started.
The Freeport High School Monarch Waystation
Our first project shows what a Sea Friends partnership looks like: a permanent native plant bed in the FHS courtyard, designed and planted hands-on with the school’s Environmental Justice and Horticulture Clubs.
The bed was built with the school’s woodshop, filled and planted by the students themselves, and certified by Monarch Watch as registry No. 55812. Twelve surplus blue-eyed grass plugs went home in backpacks that afternoon.
Read the project story
Every schoolyard, shoreline, and strip of weeds can become a garden that protects the bay.
Schools, community groups, landowners, and local government — if you’ve got ground that could be habitat, we want to work with you. We’re now taking on native relandscaping projects: turn an unused corner or an overgrown patch into a garden that looks better than lawn and does more for the coast.