About 50 GW students and Foggy Bottom residents cleaned up their neighborhood Saturday during GW’s 5th annual Foggy Bottom Cleanup. Volunteers met at St. Mary’s Court residential community and tidied four intersections, from 24th and I streets to 26th and K streets.

Junior Carl Benincasa, Student Association vice president of community affairs who organized the cleanup, said volunteers removed mostly cans, bottles and natural debris such as branches from the sites.

Organizers said they changed the event’s starting point from the Marvin Center to St. Mary’s Court near New Hall to reach out to the Foggy Bottom residents.

Benincasa said the change of venue was “an effort to show the community that we’re reaching out to them.”

“I’ve been involved with a lot of community affairs like this because I feel it’s very important for GW and the neighborhood to work together towards sharing this community,” said SA Sen. Josh Rothstein (U-CSAS), who took part in the cleanup.

The event started in 1996 with Kuyomars Golparvar, former SA vice president of Community Affairs who became SA president in 1997. Benincasa said the cleanup is part of a recent University push to foster a better relationship with the Foggy Bottom community.

“The turnout was great,” said senior Jeff Marootian, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for the Foggy Bottom area. “The purpose of this event is to introduce the community and the students to each other, and I think we had success today.”

Foggy Bottom Association President Michael Thomas, who attended the cleanup for his second time, called it “a great tradition.”

“It’s terrific to have a nice spring day for everyone to get invested (in the community),” he said. “Having the SA and neighborhood do things together is great.”
-Ross Rapoport