CSU East Bay students paired up with the City of Hayward for “Make a Difference Day” on Oct. 22, volunteering to help clean up broken bottles, cigarette butts, plastic and other litter in Hayward.
According to program coordinators, an estimated 200 to 300 CSUEB students participated this year.
Students and members of the community scoured the streets of Hayward for approximately three hours at 37 different sites between Hayward City Hall and CSUEB.
“Hayward is so messy, there is so much garbage. I really do feel like we are making a difference today,” said freshman Alma Garcia. “The streets are looking a lot better than before.”
Volunteers met at the Hayward Main Library where they were greeted by Mayor Michael Sweeny and given plastic bags, gloves and trash pickers and assigned different streets to focus on cleaning.
CSUEB students, many of whom participated through their clubs, sororities and fraternities, expressed how important it was for them to help keep the community clean by participating in events like “Make a Difference Day.”
“Participating shows that there are people out there that take the time out of their day to help their community,” said Alpha Phi Omega member Aaron Galuara. “It inspires others to do the same and it makes a huge difference with a lot more people.”
Students from the Black Student Union, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) and fraternities and sororities like Gamma Zeta Alpha and Sigma Sigma Sigma participated.
“Make a Difference Day” was started by USA Weekend magazine in 1990 and has been practiced nationally ever since its incarnation. CSUEB has participated every year since 2003.
In previous years CSUEB assigned student volunteer groups to different non-profit organizations throughout the East Bay.
This year CSUEB decided to pair up with the City of Hayward’s task force Keep Hayward Clean and Green (KHCG) to help coordinate the event.
According to Jonathan Stoll, programs coordinator of Associated Students Inc. (ASI), pairing with KHCG has helped the community effort more on “Make a Difference Day” compared to previous years, as KHCG has a larger pool of resources on hand to run a larger and more efficient event.
The number of participants hasn’t been very large in the past, but by working with CSUEB this year, “Make a Difference Day” became the largest one yet in Hayward, according to Blytha Bowers, Chair of KHCG.
While KHCG dealt with the clean up process, CSUEB’s Student Life and Diversity Center recruited students and prepared breakfast before the event and a post-celebration with music and guest speaker City of Hayward Planning Commissioner, Al Mendall.
According to Felisitas Medina, an assistant coordinator of the event, Student Life and the Diversity Center used Facebook pages from Housing to ASI to Twitter to help spread the word for recruitment.
Medina noted that so many people showed up for “Make a Difference Day” they ran out of shirts to hand out, exemplifying the desire by CSUEB to aid their communities by keeping them clean for everyone’s use.
“People who were not even signed up were walking through the door on Saturday, we just accepted anyone who wanted to join,” said Medina.
In the end, many students said they were glad to have participated for the “Make a Difference Day,” as many not only felt it is a necessary event for Hayward, but one that should be held much more often.
“This should be done more than just once a year,” added freshmen Larissa Gonzalez, noting the contribution CSUEB students have and can make to further improve the Hayward community.