The University of Connecticut and the Town of Mansfield held a successful community cleanup day on Saturday, Nov. 16. A total of 116 bags of trash were collected in this “Don’t Mess with Mansfield” event, which was coordinated from the UConn side by the Office of Sustainability.

Over 140 volunteers from the UConn community, most of them students, worked four hours to clean up trash in eight areas on the UConn Storrs campus and in Mansfield. A large number of the students came from UConn’s club sports program and Greek life communities.

“We have a cleaner town today,” says Mansfield Mayor Toni Moran. “There were dozens of students and residents who picked up trash along our roads. We were fortunate with the weather, and I think it was a great day for everybody. We are looking forward to April when we will do it again.

“This effort will benefit our wildlife, our waterways, and our experience as a community in our overall surroundings. Hopefully, it will help us all to learn not to toss items out the car windows into our environment.”

Litter was collected in the core of the UConn Storrs campus, Hunting Lodge Road, Separatist Road, Hillside Road, North Eagleville Road, Eastwood Road, and Westwood Road.

There were also volunteers that were Mansfield residents, many of them students from E.O. Smith High School.

Much of the planning for the day was performed by Anna Parker ’24 (CLAS), who now works full-time at UConn as an AmeriCorps fellow. Her work is focused on leading EcoCaptain interns, who are sustainability ambassadors in each UConn residence hall and from other community outreach groups. These ambassadors conduct sustainability related programming and educational activities for their fellow residents.

“The partnership between the Town of Mansfield and UConn for this event will lead to continuing mutual support and community-based events in the future,” says Parker. “I am anticipating an event in April to have an even greater impact.”