Photos by Miguel Otarola
More than 700 volunteers from the Clinton Global Initiative University event revitalized an empty lot on the northeast corner of Indian School Road and Central Avenue with the help of former President Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton.
The “Day of Action” was the culminating event of CGI U’s seventh annual meeting, which Arizona State University hosted beginning Friday. PHX Renews, a partnership between the city of Phoenix and the sustainability organization Keep Phoenix Beautiful, organized the Day of Action.
The volunteers were mostly college students gathered from all 50 states, 30 countries and 300 colleges and universities, who worked alongside local volunteers and ASU students.
The day began with speeches from former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, her husband Mark Kelly, Stanton and the two Clintons. After the initial rally, volunteers got to work across various work stations that included gardening, painting and creating a PHX Renews sign out of recyclable materials.
Stanton said that he and Bill Clinton proceeded slowly through each station because Clinton spent so much time speaking to as many students as possible.
“The president loves to talk, so he’s been talking to every student along the way,” Stanton said. “He knows every detail of every country. We’ve had farmers from Iraq, from the Congo, students from Afghanistan, and in every instance he knew in intricate detail what’s going on in their home country. He loves to talk about issues ranging from what’s going on in Russia to Africa to all over the world, and you can just tell he loves it and treats every student with incredible dignity and respect.”
Phoenix-based muralist Hugo Medina was a prominent volunteer at the event, helping volunteers as they contributed painted panels to what he said will be the world’s longest temporary mural, located in the perimeter around the lot. The initial mural consists of 120 panels by 80 different artists at 1,280 feet long and the Day of Action saw the creation of 50 additional panels, Medina said.
“He shook my hand even though it was covered in purple paints,” Medina said. “The beauty about the arts and this event is that it brings people together, it brings community together. So to get national recognition for that is great for Phoenix, it’s great for the artists who donated all their time to paint the panels and be a part of it, and it’s also great for all the people who are here every day struggling and working for this to happen.”
Nicholas Kanelos, who contributed to the mural, was one of the visiting student volunteers. A senior at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, Kanelos said that CGI U was both an opportunity for community improvement and for like-minded students to network and brainstorm.
“There’s this great potential to get out there and do projects like this, like revitalizing a park and creating gardening space,” Kanelos said. “I just hope that they keep doing this and keep giving students who are really motivated, who are highly capable and effective people in their own world, their own sphere, to come together and to meet each other and bounce ideas off each other.”
Terry Gellenbeck, a solid waste administrative analyst at city of Phoenix and member of PHX Renews, said that many ideas adapted from the Day of Action can be applied to the revitalization of other vacant lots in South Phoenix and Roosevelt Row. After the Day of Action, the lot will be will be used for gardening and sustainability education.
“Phoenix has a lot of vacant lots because it grew so fast,” Gellenbeck said. “What we’ll do is take this concept and move it to a lot of the other vacant lots. Not all of the ideas you can do everywhere, but there are things like the mulch that we’re standing on that keeps the dust down. And gardening is good too.”
The PHX Renews sign created for the event was made out of entirely recyclable materials, symbolizing the event’s commitment to sustainability. The entire CGI U weekend was a Zero Waste Event under the supervision of ASU.
ASU Recycling Program Manager Alana Levine said that the event will allow ASU to plan future events more efficiently and sustainably due to its scale.
“We took the opportunity to work with CGI U to create even more modeling for ASU for larger and larger events,” Levine said. “It allowed us to learn a lot of lessons for graduation, tailgating and all these other events that go on at ASU.”
Yasmeen George is a pre-dental biology student at ASU Tempe campus who founded A New Chapter For All, an organization that seeks to aid homeless populations near college campuses. George said the energy of the students and their ability to solve problems showed the value of the Day of Action.
“Hands down the Clintons were great, but the amount of ingenuity and compassion packed into the students I met was unbelievable,” George said. “Everyone gave their two cents and extended themselves, no matter where they were from. Everyone was open, enthusiastic and warm-hearted.”
Contact the reporter at bkutzler@asu.edu
