Following Friday’s Unoffical St. Patrick’s Day, members of the student group Community Organized Recycling Effort, also known as CORE, and other volunteer organizations spent Saturday collecting recycling and trash around campus.

“We really want to promote recycling and get the ball rolling for a bigger program in Champaign,” said Anna Puchalski, senior in ACES and member of CORE. “It’s an awesome thing to do with Unofficial, especially with the backlash from administration. We are putting our resources into something better rather than trash in a landfill.”

The campus cleanup was organized by CORE, but Volunteer Illini Projects, Students for Environmental Concerns, New Life Volunteer Services and other organizations also participated.

Six fraternities, 20 apartments, five or six houses and a person living at Illini Tower signed up with CORE through e-mail, instant message or text message to put their recycling outside the day after Unofficial, said CORE co-chair Cassie Carroll, senior in ACES.

Members from the groups participating went around campus on foot and in cars to collect these recyclables and other trash cluttering the area, said Aaron Pollack, a recent alumnus of the University and co-chair of CORE. The collections were then dropped off at the YMCA program director’s house and will later be taken to the Champaign recycling drop-off location.

“The cleanup is a really good way to get the issue out about recycling on campus,” said Kimberly Stevens, sophomore in ACES and CORE member.

Even students who participated in Unofficial festivities found time to help clean up the campus. Alyssa Inman, sophomore in LAS and member of CORE, said she had a good time on Unofficial, but was ready to clean up the next day.

Stevens said she understands why it may be hard to get people excited about recycling the day after Unofficial.

Between 40 and 50 volunteers signed up for the event, Carroll said.

“I thought it would be hard to get people to go, but there was a good turn out,” Inman said.

The cleanup came together in just a few weeks of planning, yet the group plans to have many more campuswide collections in the future, Pollack said.

“We want to show that in what is a dark spot for the University, there is an opportunity to do something to help,” he said. “We are working to change the image.”