GUEST COLUMNISTS: Come out for Spring Clean '97

Meredith Hertz and Joshua Fink, Guest Columnists Meredith Hertz and Joshua Fink, Guest Columnists Class president; Environmental Club president; 300 hours of community service; these are just a few of the many extraordinary accomplishments that we were sure to include in our application to Penn. We call Penn our home for the four years we are here as undergraduates. Yet, were all our promises that we made on our application to continue our involvement with our community empty ones? Take a walk around campus. Flyers from last September, bags from Billybob's, your English thesis (so that's where it was!) and various other indistinguishable "old friends" rise up from their wintry graves and declare their freedom. We say: "Shackle this trash! Send it back to prison! Do not allow the control of our streets to be wrested from you!" Do you share our concern? If so, then come take care of the problem we students have helped to create. This Saturday April 5th, starting at 10 am with a Kick-Off Bagel Brunch at the field west of High Rise North, followed by the Second Annual Spring Clean scheduled to begin at 11, we will be going into our surrounding neighborhood. Spring Clean '97 is an organized effort co-sponsored by various student groups. These groups include the Undergraduate Assembly, the InterFraternity Council, BIG-C, Panhel, the Class Boards, Kite and Key, Phi Sigma Pi Honor Fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega Service Fraternity and Circle K Community Organization. We stroll down Locust Walk and are inundated with student cries for the homeless, pleads for donations to cancer research, and solicitations for a children's AIDS charities. By the time we have reached the other end of Walk all of these cries for aid swirl together in our head and unconsciously inculcate a sense of disillusionment and frustration. Rather than galvanize our support for the myriad of causes, instead the benevolent efforts of our fellow classmates seem like they are for naught and in-turn create a sense of apathy within us all. Yet, we are not the lost Generation X that Newsweek magazine labels us. Apathy has not completely eroded the ideal goals that we strove towards in high school. Spring Clean '97 is a collaborative effort of many concerned students coming together and working towards the common goal of the betterment of our campus and community. It will not only mark the coming together of our fellow classmates, but an all-inclusive commitment of Spruce Hill and West Poweltown Community Associations, faculty, administrators, and community residents. By coming out to clean up on Saturday, students will be making a tangible investment in our community's future. On Saturday, we will join with our neighbors to keep our neighborhood clean and less of an attraction for crime. While this event will only take three hours out of your day and give you a free breakfast, the rewards of your work will greatly outweigh the time commitment. We will be looking for interested volunteers on Superblock Field at 10:00 a.m. this coming Saturday. Hope to see you there!