Volunteers help out in Marietta

By Patrick Cooley, Special to The News
MARIETTA — Fifteen volunteers installed wire mesh around a small garden near Don Drumm Field this weekend.

“Were putting up a dear fence around the Harvest of Hope Garden,” said Al Lang, owner of Greenleaf Landscaping, who was helping to oversee the project.

The group was part of the more than 300 volunteers at 24 locations throughout Marietta in Marietta College’s annual Community Service Day. The majority were students and some were residents of the city.

Two volunteers from Marietta High School were in Future Farmers of America. Many were members of Marietta College’s Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, one of 18 student organizations participating.

“This is a regular event for Greek Week,” Marietta College sophomore Eric Long said as he stapled mesh to a stake.

“Each year the council on Greek Week goes around the community and finds things that need to be done and assigns them.”

Long said that all 40 of the students in his fraternity were participating in the service day.

All six of the Greek organizations on campus took part, as well as four sports and groups such as Circle K, the Intervarsity Christian Organization and the Student Alumni Association.

At the Incredible Community Playground, several members of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity dug holes along the driveway for wooden posts. Sophomore Dan Clunies stood next to one of the recently erected posts and explained why.

“People park here and it kills the grass,” he said. “We put all these posts in and we’re going to put up some chains between them so people can get through and the grass stays alive.

When he was asked how long the volunteers would be out here, Clunies said, “As long as it takes.”

Within the playground itself, members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers picked up garbage, fixed broken equipment and removed old paint.

“We want the petroleum engineering department (at Marietta College) to be famous for something good,” said junior Tamya Carr.

“Marietta is such a small community, we just want to be helpful.”

At the Ohio Valley Humane Society, the Psychology Club helped did some landscaping and walked dogs.

“We done this every year,” said senior Philip Lemaster.

“A lot of the smaller organizations don’t really get involved like this, so we thought we would get our name out there and help some people around the community.”

At the Ely Chapman Education Foundation a line of college girls from the Sigma Kappa Sorority passed boxes from display room on the first floor to a storage area near the back of the building.

The books came from the foundation’s annual book give away.

“These are the books that weren’t taken,” said Sigma Kappa sophomore Blakely Dye.

“We’re taking them and putting them back into storage for next year.”

Renee Steffen, Marietta College’s AmeriCorps V.I.S.T.A. campus and community leader, coordinated most service day.

“This year was pretty typical,” she said. “We had 24 locations so we were able to make a large impact in the community.”