In late October, students from the First Year Experience (FYE) residence hall joined others from across campus for the annual Make A Difference Day. Kyle McGurk, a fifth-year electrical and computer engineering student from Green Bay, Wisconsin, led a team of 35 student volunteers on a clean-up of Prince’s Point. This recreational area on Portage Lake, just below the campus, is heavily used by students year-round.

They removed most signs of the social fire pits resulting in 1.5 cubic yards of waste ash. They also sifted and “Mined” three cubic yards of black sand from the top of the beach which removed:

■ 100 Gallons of partially burned organic matter (charcoal, ash)
■ 10 Gallons of metal and glass
■ ¼ cubic yard of rocks

They also cleared ground vegetation from about 30 feet of the beach shore. Kyle reports that there is a lot more to be done, “but it is a start,” he says.

Future plans are to improve the trail leading down from Cliff Drive, remove remaining vegetation from the shoreline and identify a source of proper firewood to eliminate the eliminate the burning of pallets.

Kyle is also hoping to do fill in the blanks on the area’s history and hear more about student experiences there. Do you have any supporting documentation, minutes, plans, reports, stories, etc. that might help form a more coherent timeline and vision for what Prince’s Point has been, is, and will continue to be for our community?

Send them to techalum@mtu.edu and we will feature in a future issue of TechAlum.