On Saturday, April 25, around 150 students from the Union community gathered to participate in an annual Earth Day Community cleanup throughout the Goose Hill neighborhood. The event was held in partnership with a number of neighborhood and Union College organizations, including the Boulevard Appreciation Neighborhood Association, the Goose Hill Neighborhood Association, the Upper Union Neighborhood Association, Vale Cemetery, and Yates Elementary School. Buses left in shifts from Reamer Circle to the nearby Steinmetz Park, transporting independent students and students from various on-campus organizations eager to give back to the Schenectady community. The cleanup commenced around eight in the morning and concluded at one in the afternoon, with cleanup locations spanning from within the boundaries of Steinmetz Park to streets across the Goose Hill neighborhood.
The annual Goose Hill cleanup began with Schenectady local Joe Aragosa. For decades, his family owned and operated Marty’s True Value Paint and Hardware, a staple of the Goose Hill community until its closure in 2020. “He organized this event, and then the Goose Hill Neighborhood Association took it over. He’s still the head of it,” said Jane Gray, a member of the Goose Hill Neighborhood Association, which helped to organize Saturday’s cleanup. The event grew in popularity, drawing support from various schools and community groups. “It started little by little with someone from the business district, and now it’s throughout the Schenectady neighborhoods,” Gray commented regarding the growth of the event.
The sense of responsibility to the Schenectady community had brought students from all walks of life together. Upon arrival, students of numerous affiliations joined to form cleanup groups. Motivations for students’ participation were largely the same despite their obligations to their differing organizations. Elsie Paxton ‘27 is a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority and the Women’s Crew Team. She joined her sisters and teammates for the ten o’clock shift. In explaining why she attended the cleanup, she said,” I wanted to give back to the community Union is a part of.” Vivian Zheng ‘27 attended the cleanup independently, and she too arrived for the ten o’clock shift. She had a similar sentiment to Paxton’s. “I care about the Schenectady community,” Zheng explained, “People should be able to enjoy walking the streets, and the environment we all share shouldn’t be spoiled by trash.” Driven by a common concern for the community, Paxton and Zheng worked together to remove trash along a street in Goose Hill, collectively gathering two and a half bags of litter.
At the end of the event, volunteers returned to a pavilion in Steinmetz Park and were met with pizza, snacks, and water. Union volunteers had the opportunity to interact with fellow participants and organizers as everyone refueled after a morning of exhausting work. Although attendees were tired, the pavilion was filled with stronger senses of accomplishment and satisfaction from the hard work they had done.
