May 4, 2015
SUNY students join in community cleanup
Residents and SUNY Cortland students worked together Saturday morning to clean up areas in Cortland to beautify the city.
The city of Cortland, Cortland County Chamber of Commerce and the Cortland Downtown Partnership collaborate each year to clean the community, picking up leftover debris in the spring after the snow has melted.
The community cleanup was part of SUNY Cortland’s “The Big Event,” which officials say is a positive way for students to have a relationship with the Cortland community.
This is the first year the college is having the event in an effort to show appreciation for the Cortland community.
“It’s thrilling that they are doing this,” Alderman Katy Silliman (D-2nd Ward) said. “After Cortaca a couple of years ago, this feels really good.”
Relations between the student body and the local non-student community have been tense since the Cortaca day problems in 2013, which resulted in the arrests of dozens of people and led to the passage of strict noise and social host ordinances within the city.
Jane Witty, a member of the Cortland Downtown Partnership, said the more people involved in the community cleanup, the better, adding some students will get the chance to get out of the college world and immerse themselves more into the community.
“It’s great to show there is a community-college relationship going on,” Witty said. “It’s a great way to introduce them to the off-campus sites. We get to meet the folks involved in these organizations.”
Some cleanup areas included the 1890 House museum on Tompkins Street, Toys for Tots Warehouse at 165 Huntington St., St. Mary’s Church on North Main Street, and the Cortland County Historical Society on Homer Avenue.
Senior Lucia Biscardi of Nassau County and junior Taylor Geismar of Suffolk County were set to paint bike racks on Clinton Avenue, diagonally across from Kinney Drugs.
Scraping the old black paint off, Geismar said Saturday the event helps the students recognize the school is also part of the community.
“It’s important to keep the community, that we go to school in, clean,” Geismar said.
“The Big Event” led by SUNY Cortland students had more than 400 students helping to clean up the community at different spots around the city. Community members were assigned to each group of students, who had specific jobs assigned to them at about 60 project sites throughout the city.
Steve Schaap, a city resident said, he has been interested in Mayor Brian Tobin’s initiative, “Positively Cortland,” saying there has been a disconnect between SUNY students and the community for many years.
Schaap is a SUNY graduate from the undergrad and master’s programs.
“Why is it so difficult to have a positive relationship?” Schaap, 33, asked. “It seems the students exist on the hill and the community exists in the community.”
The jobs on Saturday included outdoor painting, trash and brush hauling, mulching and gardening, hedge trimming or shoveling and raking. The Big Event is supported by $10,000 in funding from SUNY Cortland’s Student Government Association, funds that were used to purchase supplies and equipment.
Eight students from the sorority Alpha Sigma Alpha stopped to pick up garbage scattered in the parking lot of Wash Tub, a laundry on Groton Avenue.
Long Island native Emily Altschuler said it is nice to give back to the community, especially after the Cortaca “mess” which cast a negative light on the students.
“We’re trying to clean up the community and get a good rep for the school,” Altschuler, a freshman, said. “It gives us a new respect for thecommunity.”
Organizer and alumna Ashlee Prewitt, who graduated in 2014, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the goal is to say, ‘thank you,’ to the residents who support the college, adding that if academics and athletics can be highlighted, so can community service.
“Our students do so many things for the community ... but bringing them all together for one day really enables us to bring visibility to the initiative,” Prewitt said.
Another sorority member, Amanda Munn, said just because they are students does not mean they do not care about the community.
“It’s our home away from home,” Munn, a senior, said.
Pastor Matthew Smith of Faith Baptist Church stood in the parking lot of a county-owned building at 37 Church St. with some of the members of the church, ready to help out in any way he could.
“We’re excited about the students getting involved and building those bridges,” Smith said, holding his coverage area map and garbage bag.
“They’re doing something positive and that’s good,” he said.
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