About 200 ASU students joined volunteers from across the Valley on Monday to clean up South Mountain Park in Phoenix in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The 11th annual MLK Day of Service was coordinated by HandsOn Greater Phoenix.
HandsOn, a national nonprofit service organization, worked with community service coordinators from ASU and Public Allies, a nonprofit youth leadership program, to recruit volunteers for the clean up.
“We made today a day of service because we understand how important it is to recognize [Martin Luther King, Jr.] and his beliefs and values,” said Elisha Ferraro, community program manager for HandsOn. “We want to use it as an opportunity to recruit people and get volunteers to take their day off and make it a day on to give back to the community through service.”
The clean up was one of 15 events hosted by HandsOn over the course of five days and started when the organization approached Phoenix Parks and Recreation to see what it needed most.
Volunteers are critical to the park’s upkeep according to Park Ranger Neil Gerlowski.
“We have about 17,000 acres here at South Mountain Park and about 40 people on staff,” he said. “We do as detailed of a job as possible on a day-to-day basis, but this is a chance for us to really go through with a fine tooth comb and spruce the park up a bit.”
Despite stormy weather, more than 250 volunteers participated in 17 different projects including litter clean up and painting over graffiti.
Several other projects painting lines in the parking lots were canceled because of rain.
Transportation to South Mountain was provided for students from all four ASU campuses, and many chose to take advantage of this service and be bussed to the site.
Whether they took the bus or drove themselves, the student volunteers all came out with the same goals and a positive attitude.
“Giving back to the community is the biggest factor [bringing] me here,” said justice studies senior Trevor Watters. “We’re doing something great. A little help can go a long way.”
ASU Coordinator of Community Service Programs Mina Ahmad said she was happy to see students get involved and represent their school.
“Dr. King stood for community involvement,” she said. “Because ASU is such a large entity in [Phoenix,] it’s important to do our part and give back to the community, especially in honor of someone so dedicated to that.”
Reach the reporter at keshoult@asu.edu
