Sweep the Streets is a capstone project created to clean up the streets after game days. Students involved in the learning and leadership sciences (LLS) minor created this event for their class and are bringing it to the community this semester.
“We came up with this event last semester in our previous class and are now carrying it out this semester in our final class,” said Mackenzy Ruff, a senior double majoring in animal science and agricultural studies.
The event is for all Iowa State students.
“Our vision statement is, ‘Clean streets to limit the amount of trash-related pollution and develop Cyclone community,’” Ruff said. “Our mission statement [is] ‘students supporting the community by creating one clean street at a time.’”
Furthermore, Ruff said the project started in their LLS 3120 class for their minor.
“We had a brainstorming event for any project service learning project that we wanted to do at the end of this class,” Ruff said. “So it began through one of those ideas that we had and we slowly worked our way, narrowing it down, combining ideas and just deciding what we would want to do as our final project and this is the one we came up with.”
Gabby Mowbray, a senior in supply chain management, also pursued a minor in leadership and learning sciences and talked about how they came up with the idea.
“We had a set of shared values too that we came up with to help us narrow down on what we wanted to do,” Mowbray said.
Mowbray and Ruff both mentioned that students can sign up with the link to their Google form which can be found here.
Additionally, Mowbray said they hope to see a lasting improvement in the cleanliness of the streets and a more student-engaged community in the long run.
“We also want to inspire others in hopes of passing the event on to other students to run these events in the future,” Mowbray said.
Leif Olsen, instructor for the LLS minor, said the minor helps students become stronger learners and leaders.
“We’ve had a lot of students share that they were so much more successful in their coursework at Iowa State and more successful in their career internship searches thanks to the skills they build throughout the minor,” Olsen said.
He also said that the minor is five courses, and he wants to encourage students to consider registering for the minor or to complete the first course, LLS 1120.
“This is an opportunity kind of a lab space for all the learning [Ruff and Mowbray have] done in the minor with conflict resolution, personality type, leading and communicating with others, resilience, problem-solving,” Olsen said. “All these skills that we teach and have students experience and grow in during the minor they’re putting to work here this semester with this project.”
Olsen said this is “a great opportunity for students to see the learning they’ve done in the past two to three years.”
“I’m really proud of Mackenzy and Gabby for the work they’ve done so far and for the impact they’re going to make alongside their peers,” Olsen said.
Ruff said there are two ‘sweep the streets’ events, which will be Oct. 20 and Nov. 17. Students who sign up will meet at the east deck parking lot near the Gerdin Business Building at 2 p.m.
Information is also available on their Instagram page.
