Students help clean weekend mess

Local students and permanent residents joined together early Sunday to help clean up East Lansing.

The Spartan Football Cleanup, sponsored by the Community Relations Coalition, or CRC, united residents to help clear the aftermath of Homecoming weekend.

The CRC is an area group that joins students and permanent residents in an effort to better the community.

“It brings all of the residents together,” said Beverly Baten, an East Lansing City Council member who joined in the cleanup.

“It’s just an awareness of what the town is supposed to look like.”

About 25 people showed up for the event which began at 11:30 a.m. and lasted for about an hour.

“We have some new faces here, it’s a good turnout,” said Farid Nossoni, a biochemistry senior.

Nossoni, an intern with the CRC, helped organize the event by contacting neighbors, churches, the City Council and the greek community.

“It’s a stigma that the greek community has, that we make a mess,” said David Gross, a Alpha Sigma Phi member who helped clean Grove Street. “This helps that out by showing the community that we care.”

Those who came patrolled the neighborhoods north of Grand River Avenue between Abbot Road and Bailey Street, cleaning up broken plastic cups, empty beer boxes, smashed pumpkins and other remnants of a football weekend at MSU.

“I picked up a bowl of half-eaten food that still had a fork in it,” said Ann Nichols, a CRC member and resident of East Lansing, who brought her son to help with the cleanup.

At some of the houses with the most trash, the volunteers cleaning the streets knocked on the doors, offering a gentle reminder to keep the yard clean while volunteering help if the occupant came out and cleaned.

“It shows both (permanent residents and students) have pride in the community,” said Rachelle Woodbury, community liaison for MSU and East Lansing.

“It cements the idea that we all live here.”

Afterward, the CRC had donuts and apple cider for the volunteers who stuck around.

“To have (the community) see people with white hair and students working together is good,” said Doris Asher, a CRC member and an East Lansing resident.

This is the second year the event has taken place, which is held twice each football season after home games.

The group has planned another pickup on Nov. 4, following the football game against the University of Michigan.

“I hope for more people for the next one,” Nossoni said. “If people spread the word, I hope for it to double.”

Published on Sunday, October 14, 2007