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Med Students Conduct Trash Pickup in Neighborhood

GUSOM Adopt-A-Block

Class of 2015 medical students filled a dozen 42-gallon trash bags during their cleanup of the Burleith neighborhood in Washington, D.C.

August 8, 2011 – Incoming first-year Georgetown medical students helped clean up the surrounding neighborhood during the Class of 2015 Orientation Service Day’s Adopt-A-Block cleanup this past Saturday.

Nineteen students from the university’s School of Medicine – with assistance from four second-year students – filled a dozen 42-gallon garbage bags and properly disposed of a desk, a desk chair and a cart in in the adopted Burleith neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Adopt-A-Block

“The event was very successful,” says R. Reza Zonozi (M’14). “As I walked through some of the streets on my way home that afternoon, there was noticeably no litter to be found anywhere.”

Members of Georgetown’s Office of Off-Campus Student Life were also present, providing maps and other help for the student volunteers.

The Adopt-A-Block program is operated through the Washington, D.C., government’s Office of the Clean City and its Clean City Initiative.

According to the Office of the Clean City website, an organization can adopt a city block for at least two years.

 “The Adopt-A-Block program is one of many ways Georgetown medical students can immediately give back to their new neighbors and make a noticeable contribution to their community,” Zonozi says .

GIVE AND TAKE

Zonozi, a second-year med student and coordinator for this year’s event, says the day of service is a way for first-year students to positively interact with university’s neighbors and their new classmates in a service setting.

He says the late Dr. W. Proctor Harvey, one of the country’s most respected cardiologists and a Georgetown professor for more than five decades, once said medical school students should measure their lives by the “G/T ratio (or the Georgetown ratio) of what one gives to what one takes from life,’” Zonozi says. “The Georgetown School of Medicine's emphasis on serving the community, such as through the Adopt-A-Block program, falls in line with this tradition. As future physicians, we strive to keep our G/T ratio positive.”

Related Information

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