Cheney Mason/Winonan

As Winona State University’s Homecoming festivities came to a close over 90 volunteers showed up at the gazebo on campus to participate in homecoming cleanup.

Eric Stumpf said that he was at the cleanup because of his fraternity. Stumpf is a pledge for Delta Sigma Pi.

Volunteers were provided with a T-shirt, garbage bag, gloves and a map to clean campus from Huff Street to Franklin Street.

Kendra Weber, director of student and community engagement, said the turnout this year was significantly better last.

“This is only my second year doing this, and last year we had about 30 students show up. So this is definitely a bigger turn out,” Weber said.

Weber had 138 volunteers sign up, most in groups, but only 90 came.

“My job is to help make connections with the community,” Weber said. “Because of homecoming and it being a big deal in the city of Winona, I felt this was a way we could give back and make sure we leave things as good as we found them the week before.”

Erik Nowicki explained that he and his fraternity were happy to help.

“I am part of the professional business fraternity on campus, and we do volunteer work anywhere we can,” Nowicki said. “We have not done homecoming clean up before, but it’s a good cause and somebody needs to do it.”

Volunteers and groups appeared enjoy themselves as they put their time toward cleaning up. Many said picking up trash from the streets of Winona and the campus after a fun weekend is a good cause and great way to earn hours of community service.

Emily Fourniea, volunteering with other girls from second floor of Sheehan Hall said, “I wanted to give back to the community and help clean it up.”

With a larger turnout this year and many eager students willing to give back to Winona, campus was rid of left over homecoming trash left behind.

“I enjoyed helping out today. We got a lot done. We are glad we could help,” Stumpf said.