Students braved 30 mph winds to beautify Eastern’s campus for Family Weekend.

Members of between 15 and 20 organizations, equipped with garbage bags and plastic gloves, gathered Thursday to pick up trash on Eastern’s campus for the fourth annual “Time to Shine” Campus Clean-Up, sponsored by the American Marketing Association.

Jessie Rhymes, a senior economics major, and Winton Stacy, a senior speech communication major, placed rocks in their trash bags to keep them from blowing around in the crisp wind.

Stacy said the wind was a little bit of a hindrance, but what mattered was keeping the campus clean.

“It’s harder because you’ve got to chase the garbage down,” he said.

Misty Smith, coordinator of the event, said she felt the turn out was fairly decent.

Yve Williams, student vice president for student affairs, was joined by fellow student government members Jennifer Lampley and Lauren Kluge to gather rubbish.

The three agreed that the clean-up made a difference in Eastern’s appearance and that it was worthwhile for students as well as parents descending on campus for Family Weekend.

“I think we should do it more often,” Williams said. “Actually, I didn’t realize how bad it was until we start coming out here and picking up cigarette butts and stuff.”

Lampley said, “I think people do a pretty good job with the big stuff. It’s just the little stuff that adds up.”

Kluge said she thought it was great that all the organizations got together with a common goal.

Sid Dudley, faculty advisor for AMA, said the clean-up is one of the few events able to bring many different organizations on campus together.

“The wind’s done most of the work,” he joked.

Despite the projected estimation that the clean-up task would take an hour, some students arrived back at home-base with relatively light trash bags in as little as 15 minutes.