Armed with trash bags and rubber gloves, various Greek members were gathered at the field house yesterday to clean up the Bowling Green community.

Ten sororities and fraternities, including Phi Gamma Delta, Phi Mu, Delta Sigma Theta and members from National Panhellenic Council met to participate in “Greek Clean Up 2005.”

This first time event was organized by the Delta Chi fraternity.

Members want to make this an annual event, depending on the success and response of the community, said Stephen Bickerton, a sophomore and a member of Delta Chi.

Around 100 students, tired and quiet, slowly arrived to meet for this activity, where it became apparent they would probably still be sleeping if they had not participated in this event.

But they slowly came around, and the reason for being there became obvious.

“This is the right thing to do,” said senior Tierney Grayson. “This is a good cause. It is good community service. We are not here because we have to be, but because we want to help clean up our community.”

Students cleaned up areas on the west side of Main Street and in the residential areas of Wooster Street.

President of Delta Chi, John McNamara, said that they picked that area because they have little student housing and are mostly Bowling Green community members.

“We’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, and we finally got it together,” McNamara said. “We want to show residents of BG that Greeks care and want to help out the community. We wanted to combat negative stereo-types of fraternities and sororities.”

McNamara said the area was already pretty clean, so they literally had to search for more trash to pick up.

Greek members also cleaned the yard of Kenwood Elementary school, located near Main Street.

According to members of Delta Chi, the clean-up was a success, and will take place again next year.

“Once the residents, University Affairs and the students see what we did and show their support, we are hoping for more involvement in the future,” McNamara said.

Senior and member of Delta Chi, Chris Prokes, summarized the group’s willingness to help.

“Basically we are residents of the community too, so we know it real well,” Prokes said. ” We wanted to give back because it’s a great place to get an education and a great place to live.”