A group of 50 students took to the streets yesterday afternoon to clean up the off-campus area but chose not to clean up the garbage created by the riots.

Project Pride Campus Cleanup cleaned up the streets between 11th and Norwich avenues to pick up garbage created by the parties and the large amount of traffic in the area due to the football game.

Because of the rioting that occurred late Saturday night, the clean-up excluded 13th, 12th and Chittenden avenues.

Rick Barga, head of the USG Off-Campus Committee, member of Students for Recycling and co-chair for the Campus Pride Cleanup, refused to elaborate on why the cleanup would not handle the streets where riots occurred, except to call the students’ actions deplorable.

Lane Avenue was also excluded in the Project Pride Campus Cleanup.

Students from African-American Student Services, Students for Recycling, Panhellenic Council, Undergraduate Student Government, Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma national honor societies and members of various greek organizations participated in Project Pride Campus Cleanup, said Nicholas Weeden, president co-chairman of the event.

About 10 students were assigned to each street, and the crews covered the blocks between High Street and Indianola Avenue.

“This event is organized by USG on a weekly basis, but on this day we joined together to address the special situation,” said Dan Jaynes, a senior in mechanical engineering and president of Students for Recycling.

“After USG held its first annual spring cleaning last year, we decided campus needs cleaned up all the time,” said Kelli Drummer, a member of the USG Off-Campus Committee.

The cleanups take place every Sunday afternoon following home games. Drummer said organizers noticed garbage coming from these cleanups that was recyclable and decided it would be a good idea to begin recycling it. Items such as plastic bottles and cans are now taken to the recycling center at Kroger.

Robert Seed from Keep Columbus Beautiful also contributed to the event by donating gloves and trash bags. Coca-Cola donated beverages and pizza.

“I think it’s funny that greeks weren’t the ones rioting last night, but were the ones out today helping to clean up,” said Dave Linville, a junior in chemical engineering and member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

About 10 members of his fraternity were participating in the cleanup.

Linville said greeks may get portrayed in a bad light because of a group of rowdy students that gathered at 15th Avenue and High Street during the rioting, because many greek houses are located on this street.

“Our house was stained with pepper spray from last night,” Linville said.