AMHERST — Hundreds of students from the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Greek system took to the streets Sunday afternoon to rid areas surrounding campus of trash that accumulated during Blarney Blowout festivities.
The pre-St. Patrick’s day parties have in the past drawn thousands of students to the streets the Saturday before spring break. A significant police presence this year kept the partying largely under control.
But beer cans, trash and scattered litter still lined sidewalks, streets and lawns in Amherst in the aftermath of Saturday’s revelry,
UMass Interfraternity Council President John Coakley, 21, a junior and member of Phi Sigma Kappa, said he estimated about 300 students from various fraternities and sororities gathered for about an hour to clean trash around residential neighborhoods and the downtown business district.
IFC leadership made it a priority in the past year to take steps to repair the historically “rocky” relationship between the greek community and Amherst locals, Coakley said.
“It’s our town, too,” Coakley said. “It was really great to get out there and pick up trash and beer cans. We’ve been having these cleanups for the past few years, but only recently did they start getting these big turnouts.”
The students were greeted warmly by neighbors and passersby, said Mark Schmidt, a sophomore who is also IFC vice president of community relations. He’s also a member of Phi Sigma Kappa.
“We’re doing our best to show our town that we care about our community and the people in it,” he said. One woman even offered to bake them cookies because she was so grateful, he added.
“The neighbors who live closer to campus are appreciative,” Coakley said. “Although we’re not the ones out there making a mess, we have the power to fix others’ mistakes.”
Coakley said that community clean-up efforts by greek organizations was lacking last year. So this year’s large turn-out was especially refreshing.
“They kind of fell off a little bit last year,” he said. Sunday’s clean-up “was, by far, the biggest I’ve ever seen.”
Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.