Mariana Silva

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Daily Kent Stater

For the first time ever students collaborated with the city to make Kent free of trash on the day after Halloween.

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., which led the event, partnered with the city to help collect the bottles, cans and costume leftovers from Saturday night.

“We collected tons of cans,” said Ashley Bennett, secretary of Delta Sigma Theta. “We collected over 20 bags of cans. It was a lot of trash.”

Bennett said the volunteers exceeded the 150 students expected and many fraternities, sororities and student organizations on campus helped to collect trash during the event named “Yes, we can.”

The students used blue bags to deposit cans, which can be recycled, and placed the other garbage in black bags.

The City of Kent donated bags and gloves to assist the students in the cleanup and a city employee collected the bags after the event.

After volunteers finished cleaning around 1p.m., they received pizza and soft drinks from Hungry Howie’s for their gesture to the city.

Bennett said city residents were also happy with the event and that some thanked them for their action.

She added the groups collected more trash in specific places, such as student housing yards and at Main and College streets, where students concentrated for Halloween.

After Sunday’s results, Bennett said the sorority is looking into making the cleanup an annual event.

“I’m really glad we were able to clean this,” Bennett said. “We should take some responsibility to clean up the city we live in.”