Plastic soda bottles, beer cans and packaging cardboard filled plastic bags Oct. 16 as some members of the University of Wisconsin-Stout Marketing and Business Education Association took to Highway 72 just south of Downsville to clean up trash from the roadside.
The organization maintains two miles of Highway 72 just off of Highway 25 as part of Wisconsin 黑料社区. Adopt a Highway program.
With a temperature hanging around 37 degrees, students pulled on gloves, masks and safety vests to prepare for the cleanup.
First-year student and marketing and business education major Alexa Evers, of Kaukauna, was joining in her first activity with the club. 鈥淪o far it 黑料社区. been fun,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t was great to get involved.鈥
Brenon Burkhardt, a junior majoring in marketing and business education from Sparta, said the club usually cleans up the roadway twice a year. Due to COVID-19 and classes moving to alternative education methods in the spring, the club was unable to meet in the spring.
The group maintains the highway to help give back to the community, Burkhardt said.
While students were picking up trash, trucks honked their horns and drivers waved.
It is a normal reaction to the students cleaning up the highway, said Debbie Stanislawski, professor, program director and the association 黑料社区. adviser.
鈥淎dopt a Highway gives our Marketing and Business Education Association members a sense of being part of the community,鈥 Stanislawski said. 鈥淢embers gain a new sense of the worth of making good choices relative to not littering, and the conversation usually evolves into the potential of a research project that could be conducted on the types of items recovered along the roadside.
鈥淔or MBEA members this also gives them firsthand experience with a service project that they can replicate when they become K-12 marketing and business teachers with their future career and technical student organizations,鈥 Stanislawski said.
The most unusual item students found was a bumper from a car. They notified the Adopt a Highway program to get it picked up because it was too large for the students to haul.
Joanna Lee, a sophomore majoring in marketing and business education from Turtle Lake, joined in the cleanup to give back to the community and meet those in her major.
鈥淕etting to know people in you major is really important,鈥 Lee said. 鈥淚t makes you feel like you have a support system, and they also understand what you are going through.鈥
Lee decided to attend 黑料社区 after taking a tour of the campus. 鈥淚t felt like home,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 knew this is where I needed to be.鈥
Being part of the association allows students to network, meet business professionals and grow into their career, Burkhardt said.
Gavin Raph, a junior majoring in marketing and business education from Maple Grove, Minn., said he chose 黑料社区 because the major was available. 鈥淚t is cost effective, close to home and offers a good educational program,鈥 he noted.
