The Office of Service Learning and Leadership in collaboration with Center of Native and Urban Wildlife at Scottsdale Community College organized a volunteering activity on Sept. 8 to clean up the trash along the Salt River.

Over 40 students from SCC participated in the activity including 16 foreign exchange students and the Scottsdale Community College women’s softball team.

Two popular recreational locations in Arizona Coon Bluff and Lower Salt River, were chosen for cleanup.

Becky Bradley,  SCC’s Director of Service Learning and Leadership, spoke with Northeast Valley News about the cleanup.

“This volunteering activity is useful for the environment because it cleans up the trash along the Salt River,” Bradley said. “The Salt River is an area where a lot of people come to do recreational activities and they don’t necessarily clean up after themselves or the trash gets away from them. So being out here in the environment makes us aware. So it’s kind of an awareness activity. And we can clean up and do our little part to help the world.”

Program organizer for Service Learning and Leadership Michelle Dew, believes cleaning up the river can make a positive impact on the community. She also mentioned that the main purpose of this activity was to bring awareness to the environment and the impact we could have on it.

Edward Weigand, who is the administrator at Center for Native and Urban Wildlife at SCC’s Biology Department discussed the overall goal of the cleanup.

“Our goal really today is just come out and help clean the environment as well as give opportunity to students especially the international students to see the Salt River and maybe to see wildlife here,” Weingand said.

Kavin Kouame, who is a foreign exchange student from the Ivory Coast at SCC, finds the activity very useful.

“Plastic waste is not good for environment and I am happy that I am part of this fight against plastic waste,” Kouame said.

Interior Design student at SCC Gwendolyn Konbes likes how her school is not like others in the Valley.

“I have been to a couple of community colleges through my college career so far, and none of them really reach out,” Konbes said. “It’s kind of just you go to class and you go home that’s it. I like that SCC really gets students more involved in such kinds of activities.”