Over 60 Community of Scholars students joined forces with volunteers from AmeriCorps and Detroit Public Schools on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to clean up the neighborhoods around the Communication and Media Arts High School, located in the 14000 block of Mansfield St.

The goal was simple - to clear paths and create safe walkways for students, families, and workers in the area to use. Altogether, students boarded and cleaned up yards of 15 abandoned houses in the surrounding neighborhood and cleared six vacant lots of debris and trash.

Students received a welcome surprise when State of Michigan Lt. Governor Brian Calley arrived to work alongside the students and volunteers.

"It's really all about the community coming together," Calley said. "You can see what people can do when they are working together towards one goal and making a huge difference for this community."

Kiristen Hubbard, a freshmen Criminal Justice major, added that she has always enjoyed doing community service ever since she was little. "The MLK event was a way for me to give back the community, even though it is a community that is not, per se, mine. Since I'm going to Wayne State now Detroit, in a sense, is my community," Hubbard said.

This was the second time that sophomore Biological Sciences major Maurekha Haynes has volunteered to clean up houses with AmeriCorps. "Together we made the community a safer place and I was glad to be a part of such an amazing opportunity," Haynes said. She recommended that every student should come out and be apart of the annual clean-up opportunity. "It is such a great event," she added.

Once the clean-up was finished, all the volunteers were treated to a hot lunch at Communication and Media Arts High School, followed by a speech from the school's principal.

The Community of Scholars is a unique and distinct group of students who excel not only academically, but within their community as well. The Community of Scholars has served food to the elderly and homeless, painted schools, and participated in neighborhood clean-ups within the city of Detroit. Since its development in 2010, students of CoS have completed more than 47,000 community service hours that resulted in a economic impact of more than $1,000,000.