Johanna Stubenhofer
Contributing Writer
Faculty members and sleepy college students wake up early on Saturday, Sept. 30. to volunteer on behalf of the community throughout Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg so that they may detoxify the environment we all live in.
Faculty member Margarita Carver of the Athletic Training Department reveals that ESU partners with the Pocono Bureau to clean up local streets surrounding campus and providing community service for the good of the environment.
“We’re trying to introduce the fact that [students] need to be getting active outside the classroom…and giving back to the community,” proclaims Margarita Carver.
Carver elaborates that the trash that is left on the ground, particularly plastic, which is not biodegradable, is harmful to the earth and the animals that attempt to ingest them.
Items such as cigarette butts, gum, bottles and other forms of garbage are dangerous enough to wildlife living in this area that it threatens their endangerment and disrupts the ecosystem.
After being informed of the event through ESU, the professor, who also runs the Student Athletic Club for the Athletic Department, decided to get involved with Pick Up the Poconos, including the students that she supervises at the club.
Professor Carver believes that the act of community service “…helps build…character and helps [faculty] to form bonds with the students outside of the classroom as well.”
Carver’s purpose for volunteering for this event allowed her to reflect on her time in college when she completed community service at a soup kitchen and believes it to be “very rewarding.”
“I want a beautiful Earth and assume everybody else does…that’s why we did this and teaching the students that there’s more to life than just going to class and…worrying about themselves. We need to be more selfless,” she clarifies.
Many of the students that volunteered for Pick Up the Poconos were freshman that were able to form bonds and friendships with others.
According to Carver, volunteering gave them the opportunity to connect with others while “doing something positive.”
Community service and the act of volunteering helps bring strangers closer together as they strive to serve others with nothing more than a pair of hands and a few garbage bags.
Email Johanna at:
jstubenhof@live.esu.edu
