Over 200 CSU East Bay students were up at the break of dawn Saturday, ready to devote a day of service to beautifying the city of Hayward for national Make a Difference Day.

“Our goal was to have students go into Hayward, clean and just do good,” said Megan Bebb, student life advisor at CSUEB. “It’s a way for community members to see that our students are part of making Hayward great and beautiful.”

According to USA Weekend Magazine, Make a Difference day was founded in 1990, and has become the largest community service effort in the nation, with over one million participants every year. With the help of Michael Sweeney, mayor of the city of Hayward, more members of the CSUEB community have been able to participate in Make a Difference Day since 2003.

The 19-member task force, Keep Hayward Clean and Green (KHCG), also gets involved in Make a Difference Day as well as their own monthly cleanup of Hayward which encourages members of the community to join in the efforts. Part of their recruitment effort is to also assist CSUEB student volunteers in receiving their mandatory community service credit, which they have been doing for the past two years.

“Students come to us for their community service hours because we are very flexible,” said Heather Enders, a member of KHCG task force. “Students come for half a day, and can still get their full hours.”

The morning began with volunteers eating, registering and receiving their Make a Difference Day t-shirts. As volunteers finished putting on their fluorescent lime green vests, they were handed gloves and extendable, silver grabbers to pick up the excessive amounts of trash at elementary schools, streets and parking lots around Hayward.

“People don’t even pick up the trash on their property,” said CSUEB student, Jennifer Rivas. “We found used condoms, tampons, swisher wraps and cigarette butts.”

“This year was a little more challenging,” said Bebb. “We had the investiture, the promise neighborhood act and now Make a Difference Day, and the numbers have been high for each.”

Students were assigned the task of removing graffiti from walls and signs along the streets of Whipple, Mission and West Harder Road. Areas like Mi Pueblo shopping center, Tennyson High School and even BART parking lots received the undivided attention of student volunteers.

“Some lady thought we had gotten a DUI because we were cleaning trash and another guy gave us a dollar when he saw us cleaning,” said Maria Hernandez, a freshman at CSUEB.

At noon, students met in CSUEB’s New University Union to enjoy Hawaiian BBQ and light-hearted hip-hop and pop music.

After four hours of community service work, students explained the hardest part of their day was waking up, while the community service work was relatively easy. With thousands of new projects being planned nationwide, students at CSUEB say they are looking forward to the next Make a Difference Day, when they can come together for the common mission of improving the lives of others.