Students removed around 1,070 pounds of trash from the French Creek watershed on Saturday at the yearly event organized by the French Creek Valley Conservancy.
“It’s more than a win in my book,” said Students for Environmental Action President Julia Sonen, ’24.
The French Creek Cleanup is a yearly event organized by the French Creek Valley Conservancy and involves numerous other organizations from Crawford County and the surrounding area. Allegheny College’s contribution was organized by two groups: SEA and Creek Connections. SEA is principally a student-run activist group, while Creek Connections focuses on organizing community partnership events under the direction of Wendy Kedzierski.

The volunteers split into groups, each covering different stretches of the creek. Group #1 was led by Sonen and began its day by walking upstream, from downtown Meadville out into a residential neighborhood before encountering another group made up of workers from the Meadville Medical Center.
Sonen has been involved with SEA for three years, and has been in charge of SEA’s involvement with the French Creek Cleanup the entire time. She considers it one of her favorite SEA events of the year.
Despite how impressed she was with the cleanup, she was also very eager for feedback. Throughout the day, she made it very clear to everyone around her that criticism was not just welcome, but highly valued. This includes a questionnaire sent to all participants asking how they felt about their part in the cleanup and how they think it could be improved.
“It’s just our way of making sure that we keep getting better at this,” Sonen said.
Willow Vowler, ’25, a member of Creek Connections was similarly impressed, but they noted a few specific points that could be improved upon.
“In comparison to the last two years, I think we have a bit of a lower turnout,” they said.
Vowler was hesitant to speculate about the reason, but they stressed the fact that student participation is key.
“Advertising more and trying to get other organizations on campus to participate” were two of their main suggestions to increase future student involvement. Most of the student volunteers at the event were from SEA and other student-run environmental groups, as well as a few sports teams, fraternities, and sororities. But Vowler pointed out that there are many other organizations on campus that could be bringing in volunteers.
“The best way for any event to get people involved is to make it fun, and we have a lot of fun,” Vowler said “We try to make people feel like they’re involved in a community, and that they’re safe.”
Sonen agreed with Vowler that student involvement is key, and pointed out that most of SEA’s members, as well as most volunteers, were first- or second-year students.
“By the time people get to senior year, they’re engaged in other things,” Sonen said. “Also, I think activism and club work of any type can be exhausting, especially once you get to the later stages of leadership.”
The students who did take the time out of their schedules to help clean up French Creek, though, made a positive impact on the local watershed.
“In my mind, it went really smoothly,” Sonen said. “No one got left behind, everyone seemed like they had a good time, and we got a huge amount of trash picked up. So from my point of view, everything went well.”