Over 160 student volunteers gathered at the Student Union Building on Saturday for the 40th annual Rake Up Boise event.
“This is definitely the biggest we’ve ever had,” said Zoe Mace, Media Communications major and service programming lead for student involvement.
For 40 years, local nonprofit Neighborworks Boise has hosted Rake Up Boise, an event that invites various groups to band together and clean up houses of those in need, such as the elderly or people with disabilities.
“Rake up actually takes nominations from folks in neighborhoods,” said Maura Romano, the campus programs coordinator with Student Involvement. “There are eligibility requirements of having a disability, being over a certain age, or a reason why they couldn’t rake up their own yard.”
The volunteers gathered at 10 a.m. on Saturday, where they received their supplies and papers with their assigned address, as well as an estimation of how many bags would be used. From there, Mace and Romano oversaw the volunteers raking up various homes over the course of an hour and a half.
“Some of them even kind of went above and beyond and asked the neighbors next door if they needed them to rake up their leaves,” Mace said.
While each house usually takes between an hour to an hour and a half, Mace noted one house had way more leaves than they anticipated and ended up taking two and a half hours. However, this wasn’t a setback for long as the rest of the volunteers united to assist with the house.
“We had to switch gears really quickly, and our whole team ended up being able to show up and help them out for a while… it ended up being a really big group effort and getting everybody else involved,” Mace said. “It’s really cool to see everybody come together and get all the leaves raked.”
The Student Involvement and Leadership Center has been participating in this event for over 10 years. Romano noted they aren’t the only group on campus that joins in; teams from a variety of organizations are divided up and assigned to help out various yards around Boise.
Romano praised TKE’s participation in particular, adding that they’ve shown up all four years she’s worked the event, eager to help out.
“We do so much in the Boise area, so we’ve got to give back somehow,” said Coop Eririckson, a business entrepreneurship major in TKE. “It’s definitely nice to be there for people.”
Though Rake Up Boise consistently attracts many volunteers, Student Involvement occasionally lacks nominations for residents looking for services. This year, they were tasked with assisting seven houses, which Mace stated is an average number.
“People all want to help, but they don’t have enough yards to assign, and we always end up with a pretty large team,” Romano said. “But that doesn’t make it any less rewarding to go out there and help people out.”
Some of the resident homes are in desperate need of cleanup, as Mace noted that last year, one home required 81 bags to hold all of the leaves. Romano noted that their participants always go “above and beyond” for the residents, with some staying after the event’s expected duration to clean residents’ gutters in recent years.
Mace said aside from Rake Up Boise, there are many ways students can give back to the community, noting the “huge list” of community programs available through campus groups.
Their next event, Outbreaks, is a week-long service project where students travel to participate in trail maintenance and animal advocacy in the spring.
“It’s just really fun to see how many people we get every year, and it just seems to keep growing,” Romano said.“Campus Rec and Wellness Services and other entities on campus will all register their own teams if they want,” Romano said.
Each year, Mace submits the budget proposal to Student Financial Services, who decide how much money to grant them for the event. This year, they were granted $1,200; they only ended up using $600.
Mace explained that this money helps to acquire food and supplies for the day, such as rakes, gloves and trash bags. “We provide food and drinks in the morning… It’s almost like a social hour before everybody gets here and gets assigned,” said Mace.
Romano noted the majority of their volunteers are fraternity members from Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), Delta Sigma Epsilon, Sigma Chi, and Kappa Sigma. Other campus groups, such as the Lightsaber Society and Criminal Justice students, also volunteered this year.
“We do it every year because it’s a cool event,” said Ryan Shehadi of his fraternity. “We go help serve the community.”
