This past Sunday was a great day for the Greek Community. A handful of Greek organizations participated in Delta Upsilon’s “Greek Sweep” to clean up the leftover mess from State Patty’s Day. Participants chipped in for the cost of cleaning supplies and all received T-shirts to represent the event. Sage Perisse, VP of External Relations said:

The event lasted about 2 1/2 hours from the time the participants showed up until all the trashbags were collected and brought to dumpsters. It was very much a success, to the point where we over-anticipated the amount of trash that would be in the streets. We were expecting mountains of beer cans and food, but I was proud of how Penn state students handled themselves compared to what I’ve seen some football weekends.

We asked the President of Delta Upsilon, Justin Robinson, how the chapter came up with this idea.

Roy Baker suggested that we take on a community service projects like the ones that used to be done by the Greeks such as cleaning down town. We then sent an email out on the president’s listserv explaining the philanthropy to them and asking if they wanted to participate to email back my philanthropy chair Sage Perisse and he’ll get them involved.

Just several days before, the IFC announced their initiative to sponsor “Greek Sweep” events to be held after major-event weekends. IFC President, Max Wendkos, said the following:

The first Greek Sweep was a collaborative effort between the Interfraternity Council and Delta Upsilon. In the future, Greek Sweep will be coordinated and run exclusively by the IFC’s Vice President for Programming with the help of the Committee for Philanthropic, Community Service, and Educational Programming Affairs. Our future goals include establishing Greek Sweep as an ongoing initiative and garnering participation from a greater number of Greek organizations.

Considering that this is the first Greek Sweep in recent memory, I am incredibly pleased with how seamlessly the event was run.  The Interfraternity Council received very positive feedback from members of the community and we are proud to have restored the Highlands neighborhood to its normally clean condition.