A lesson of ethics and community responsibility was put into practice yesterday. A swarm of 250 Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School graduate students and community partners bustled around East Liberty yesterday doing community work as part of CMU’s orientation. The students were broken into groups at 13 different locations, learning about a new neighborhood and helping to implement community projects.
The students tamed three vacant lots in preparation for GTECH’s innovative urban, bio-fuel crop farming (read more about this in our previous post, GTECH, Lots of Potential).
Two groups revived the traffic islands at the main intersections of Penn Avenue and Penn Circle East and West. These forgotten, litter-ridden medians were transformed into beautiful neighborhood entrances with an array of flowers and our Welcome to East Liberty sign.
At Peabody High School, a very enthusiastic group of students worked to save eight trees that had suffered from years of improper planting and neglect. The volunteers pulled up hundreds of paving stones to give the tree’s roots more room, as well as put down fertilizer and mulch.
The day also included street and graffiti clean up, street tree mulching, some joyfully messy selective demolition of 4 vacant houses and maintenance of a community garden. The entire day resulted in over 1,300 hours of community service in the East Liberty community.
The work of the students was very valuable and greatly appreciated by the all neighborhood partners. Many of the sites received encouragement, compliments and thanks by passing-by East Liberty residents. The Tepper students showed equal interest in the community by asking questions and intently absorbing the neighborhood. The students’ positive, hard-working attitudes were not dampened by the harsh, storming weather.
Read more about the event in the Post Gazette and check out more pictures.
