A group of Camosun students spent time out of their day to beautify a street in Colwood on Thursday afternoon.
Ten first year students from the Lansdowne campus spent a few spare hours picking up garbage along the stretch of Ocean Boulevard between Esquimalt Lagoon and Colwood Pacific Activity Centre.
“We were planning to clean up in Victoria, but we spent too much time trying to figure out where we were allowed to pick up garbage,” said first-year Kali Dinsjardins. “We were passed on from the city to a maintenance company, and they never got back to us, so we decided to come to Colwood.”
READ MORE: Greater Victoria beach clean up recovers 655 pounds of garbage
Dinsjardins picked up pieces of trash with nine of her classmates: Zain Mumtaz, Mike Jung, Sierra Newlove, Rachel Trotter, Josh Gilbert, Taylor Karpiak, Gurpinder Matter, Brendon Cripps, and Kallista Newby.
The Camosun students are team members in a group project for their Intro to Sociology course.
“Our teacher challenged us to be change-makers, so here we are,” Kallista Newby said. “This is a beautiful place and it’s awful to see people trash it all.”
During the time spent combing through parts of the forest and along the side of the road, they found empty beer cans, glass bottles, motor oil containers, and even a single shoe.
The students plan to call the City of Colwood to lobby for a garbage can in the area, as there are no public ones between Esquimalt Lagoon and Colwood Pacific Activity Centre.
“It shouldn’t be that difficult to throw your garbage out, but here we are picking it all up,” Dinsjardins said. “It doesn’t look like you need a garbage can here until you start looking for the trash.”
aaron.guillen@goldstreamgazette.com
@iaaronguillen
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.