On Tuesday, dozens of students joined the Office of Leadership and Community Engagement at the Earth Day Clean Up on the Armstrong campus.

The event provided “clean up materials for students to serve the campus and clean up their community,” according to Emma Mancini, the Assistant Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life, who attended the event as part of FSL Serves Week. 

Rachel West, the Assistant Director of Leadership and Community Engagement, said that events like the Earth Day Clean Up “introduces students that may not be involved in our office programming to all we do because we don’t just think about one type of service initiative, We are thinking about all of our sustainable development goals here on campus, whether that be zero hunger, clean earth and more.”

OLCE has various sustainability programs and opportunities, including Eagles for Sustainability, the campus community garden and the Sustainability Project Funds. 

“This is one of the largest participations we have had on Earth Day. I think it’s so important, especially with this being in south Georgia on a waterway that we’re keeping our campus clean, so close to the marsh, and I’m really excited to see the turnout for students today,” she said.

Armstrong students agreed that keeping the campus clean was important. 

“The Earth provides for us; we should provide for the Earth,” said Jose Rivera, a first-year music industry major.

Another music industry major, Alyssa Speck, also believes we should celebrate Earth Day to “raise awareness about things like recycling, and reducing our carbon footprint” to decrease the impact of climate change. 

“I think it’s important because things that we do now can affect the Earth for, like, centuries to come” and so “people after us can have it and keep it and better preserve what we have left for them,” Speck said. 

Jonathan Hoffman, a third year economics major, also said it is about environmental knowledge and changes “like climate change.”

Ryan Ferrara believes Earth Day is a way for us to “honor the Earth” for what it provides us with.

“Well, now more than ever, I feel that the importance of Earth Day is to bring awareness to the things that are going wrong, so bringing more light to climate change and how to fix it, and just taking care of the world that we live in,” they said.

The 2025 theme for Earth Day this year was “our power, our planet,” according to the Earth Day website. It called for “everyone to unite around renewable energy so we can triple clean electricity by 2030.”