STERLING - It was a busy day at the Sterling Nature Center Saturday.

While one group of people was racing against the clock to cook their chili in time for the judging, another was out by the shore picking up trash that accumulated throughout the winter.

Those who entered the cook-off had two hours to prepare and cook the chili on-site. Judges began tasting at 11 a.m.

This was the second annual chili event at the Sterling Nature Center, said organizer Chuck Paice, of Red Creek. Last year, half a dozen people entered the competition but this year only three people came out to display their skills.

“It provides a break from indoor activity and gives people an opportunity to enjoy the spring and the nature center,” Paice said. “It's a source of pride. Cooks get a chance to show off their wares.”

Paice hopes the chili cook-off gets bigger and better in the upcoming years.

Charlie Itzin, president of the Friends of Sterling Nature Center, took second place last year and decided to try his hand a second time around.

“Once you get that close, you just have to try to go for the glory,” he said.

This year, his chili had a variety of meats, along with a homemade chili powder he got from a friend and fresh cilantro. Itzin, of Fair Haven, planned to go to a Kentucky Derby party later and wanted to bring his award-winning chili along with a plaque, he said.

The two others who entered Saturday's contest were John Gardner, of Red Creek, and Jim Pangborn, of Hamlin.

For Gardner, this year's competition was the first chili cook-off he entered. He enjoys cooking chili and decided to enter the contest.

Gardner believes this type of event is important for the community.

“It gets people together where they might not normally do that,” he said.

Pangborn, last year's first-place winner, makes a vegetarian chili. A member of the Friends of Sterling Nature Center, he entered last year's cook-off because it sounded like fun.

“Anything we can do to get people together at a place like this where it's possible to enjoy the outdoors seems to me to be a positive,” he said.

On the shore, a group of five people were busy picking up the trash brought in by the tide. Girl scouts Virginia Ogden and Emily Treat, both of Weedsport, worked together finding and collecting the garbage. They are members of the Seven Links Council Troop 442.

Ogden believes cleaning up the shore is important.

“It gets people to rally together to help the environment and it's just so people can see what a beautiful nature center we have,” she said.

Treat has been coming to the nature center since she was a little girl and was shocked at how much garbage she found Saturday.

“It used to be really nice and now it's just trash,” she said.

Ogden and Treat found a number of interesting items Saturday, including a rusty sink, a couple of laundry baskets and remnants of a Price Chopper shopping cart.

Both girls would later go geocaching, or looking for hidden treasures using GPS technology within the nature center, with some other members from their troop.

Back by the nature center, judges Susan Fuller and Randy Lawrence were sampling the chili and the results were very close. In the end, Itzin's chili won. Both judges rated last year's chili as well. Lawrence and Fuller both agreed it was a close competition because all of the chili was very good.

As the chili cook-off was winding down, the girl scouts came back with director of the nature center Jim D'Angelo and began looking for the geocaches. He hid two geocaches Saturday and there were eight or nine that were previously hidden by other geocachers.

The two boxes hidden by D'Angelo included little containers with garbage bags and a travel bug and one with a geocoin. The travel bug and geocoin each have a unique serial number that can be traced online to see where it is at any given point, D'Angelo said.

This was the third year the nature center had a Cache In, Trash Out event. Geocaching draws a crowd of people who are interested in picking up trash but also in doing the caching after.

With geocaching becoming more popular, D'Angelo hopes this event will grow in future years. He also recognizes that the spring crowd is not the same as the people who help collect trash in the fall.

“It's a different audience than we normally attract with the other beach cleanups,” he said. “They already want to help we just have to provide them the opportunity.”

Staff writer Gitana Mirochnik can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or gitana.mirochnik@lee.net