Phi Theta Kappa officer organizes Rio Grande Campus Cleanup

Honors society students spent two and half hours picking up trash and cigarette butts outside the Rio Grande campus on Feb. 18. Julie Gorkowski-Day, a Phi Theta Kappa officer who chairs the Clean Communities committee organized the event. Gorkowski-Day, Taylor Flanagan and Latif Almanzan, both Phi Theta Kappa members, worked to clean the campus.

"It was disgusting. I don't care if people smoke, but throw it away when your done with it. The most disgusting places had trashcans right next to them," Gorkowski-Day said.

Phi Theta Kappa has four Hallmarks: Scholarship, Service, Leadership and Fellowship. Under these Hallmarks, there are committees chaired by Phi Theta Kappa officers. Gorkowski-Day is the chair of the Clean Communities committee. She also chairs the Ronald McDonald House committee, and Minis and Friends committee (a pet therapy organization that works with miniature horses, founded by her mother).

Campus Clean-up is run through Clean Communities. Gorkowski-Day chose the Rio Grande campus because while attending classes there, she noticed all the cigarette butts and trash around the building.

"There is a criteria for certain levels of membership with Phi Theta Kappa and these community events help members clock hours" Gorkowski-Day said.

Even though they worked for nearly three hours, Gorkowski-Day said that she wished they had made more of a dent.

"I was hoping to leave feeling like we had made a cleaner campus, but i didn't...we had, I would say, 90 percent cigarette butts, and it's hard for three people to pick up nothing but that for three hours. I would like to do it again with more people so we could get more done."