Students mark Earth Day with clean-up efforts

Students join community members, including Newark Mayor Vance Funk, to clean up city parks.

6:20 p.m., April 27, 2005--More than 450 UD students braved last Saturday’s rainy weather to participate in a large-scale community clean-up effort that included several city parks and a state park along the Delaware River.

Members of UD’s Wildlife Conservation Club hauled plastic debris, tires and remnants of barriers left over from last November’s oil spill from the shoreline at Fox Point State Park in Wilmington, and members from 12 different UD fraternities and sororities collected more than 200 bags of trash from Newark parks in a community service project that coincided with Earth Day.

Organized by Matt Lenno, UD assistant director of Student Centers, the Greek clean-up effort drew approximately a fourth of all members of UD fraternities and sororities and covered all Newark parks except for one on Cleveland Avenue that is currently under construction.

Teams were divided into north and south task forces, and all members pitched in for transportation costs, bags, gloves and snacks.

UD Wildlife Conservation Club members (from left) Kristin Comolli, Scott Williamson and Christie Ledeker pitch in during a clean-up effort along the Delaware River in Fox Point State Park.

“We had a very good turnout, a lot of enthusiasm, and all the supplies and transportation for the effort were paid for out of participants’ own pockets,” Lenno said. “We began these clean-up efforts last semester, and we’ve found they’ve been appreciated. It’s a great way to give back and make a difference in the community.”

Kristin Comolli, a co-president of UD’s Wildlife Conservation Club, said that clean-up efforts at Fox Point State Park made a similar positive impact. In the Saturday morning project sponsored by Conectiv and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), club members collected piles of trash from the beach and marsh grasses along the Delaware River.

“We collected a lot of random debris,” Comolli, a senior wildlife conservation major from West Chester, Pa., said. “The club has been doing this for the past few years, and it’s always good to know that the effort helps.”

Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson and Greg Drew

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