Waves of orange t-shirts rolled into Scott Park Saturday morning as volunteers arrived to kick off Boneyard Creek Community Day. Their goal: to clean up the creek and different sections of Campustown.

Over 200 volunteers supported this annual event, sponsored by the cities of Champaign and Urbana. At 9:00 a.m., participants arrived at the park and received their assigned areas. The day featured temperatures in the high 60’s without a single cloud in the sky. Alex Nagy, a civil engineer for the city of Champaign, explained the day’s objectives.

“We’re just trying to clean-up the campus area and the creek that goes through the campus. We’re trying to get some education programs out there about keeping the campus clean. It’s an overall community event where people can help out to keep this campus clean,” said Nagy.

Organizers targeted different areas on and around the college campus. After picking up their cleaning materials at the park, groups of students left to take on their respective sections. Edwin Corral, junior in molecular biology, shared his thoughts while working on Green Street.

“As you walk around you see a lot of trash. It puts that into perspective; you can’t really just litter around when your coming out of a restaurant or going to a bar. People walk by and there looking at us and probably thinking, ‘next time we’re not going to litter,” Corral said.

People cited different reasons for coming out to support the cause. Alex Libby, freshman in aerospace engineering, said that he was motivated by his religion.

“As a follower of Buddhist ideals, I believe in minimizing your footprint on the area around you. I think cleaning up is a great way to get work done,” Libby said.

While undergraduate students were well-represented, the volunteer pool was diverse. Many older adults worked on the project, along with many young children form the Boys and Girls Clubs.

Recycling was an important theme throughout the day. Organizers collected the litter-grabbing sticks after the cleaning was completed, and will use them again next year. Volunteers were provided with reusable water bottles during the event.

The organization targeted thirty-eight locations on their clean-up route, but were only able to send groups to twenty. Despite the missed areas, Jane Solon, a volunteer from the Champaign West Rotary, said there will be a noticeable difference.

“You will see that a lot of the litter has been picked up in the Campustown. The Boneyard area is cleaned out from the litter that get caught in during the rain, things that get caught on the rocks.

While the majority of the work occurred on the University of Illinois campus, select groups contributed from two remote locations, Parkland College in Champaign, and the Anita Purves Nature Center in Urbana.