Duquesne students pick up trash along a road for the 2014 Spiritan Campus Ministry Spring Clean-Up. This year, almost 600 students will travel to the Hill District, Uptown and the South Side. They will be joined by 100 community members.
By Gigi Jeddi | The Duquesne Duke
Since it was founded almost 30 years ago by a Catholic nun named Bernadette Campbell, Duquesne’s annual Spring Clean-Up has served as an opportunity for the university to connect with its neighboring communities.
Kate Lecci of Duquesne’s campus ministry office is in charge of this year’s event, which will involve almost 600 students and more than 100 members of the South Side and Uptown neighborhoods.
“It’s an opportunity for us to be great neighbors,” Lecci said.
Student participants, which include many members of Greek Life, will gather on campus early Saturday morning and arm themselves with gloves, trash bags and hazardous material disposal boxes. They will then break into groups and walk through the Uptown, Hill District and South Side neighborhoods, picking up garbage.
According to Lecci, some groups will also plant and weed community gardens and parks, such as the Bandi Shaum garden in the South Side Slopes and the Martin Luther King urban garden at the intersection of Kirkpatrick Street and Allequippa Street in Uptown.
Following the cleanup, there will be a luncheon with musical entertainment for all participants. Those interested in signing up as volunteers can join in at 8:30 a.m. on Mellon patio Saturday morning.
“This is an opportunity for the Duquesne community to continue to foster the relationship between neighbors… a relationship we’ve been fostering for the past 30 years,” Lecci said.
