In response to backlash from the town of Fairfield regarding beach parties, Fairfield University has made some new improvements to a yearly initiative to clean up the beaches. Each year, parties such as SantaCon are hosted on the beaches, where some university students live, and residents living in the town of Fairfield express discontent with the activities at the beach.
After the last SantaCon, for example, Fairfield University made local news headlines and full-time beach residents were disappointed by the state of the beach, as well as concerned about the safety of students during SantaCon and parties like it.
Town hall meetings were hosted about the issue, and the Fairfield Beach Residents Association wrote a letter to the university via Patch, calling for more safety measures to be put in place. Posts circled Facebook, with many commenters calling on university students to clean up the messes left behind. In anticipation of the 2024-2025 school year, and specifically SantaCon, the town of Fairfield has already hired a legal team.
In an attempt to make peace with the town, every Sunday students gather at the town beaches and get to work. Dean Allison Berger sent students emails about the weekly cleanups and word was spread via GroupMe as well. Once at the cleanup, volunteers received shirts, trash bags and gloves before they set out on their walk.
In addition, Dean Berger says, “The University also sponsored a street through the Town’s Adopt a Street Program, and students are cleaning that location during the weekly cleanups.” According to the program’s website, this is a new initiative to keep the streets free of litter, preventing trash from entering Long Island Sound. Further, Dean Berger says that Fairfield University has supplied students with 25 more trash bins on top of what has already been provided by their landlords.
This year, to encourage students on and off campus to join the effort, the university has provided some new incentives for the cleanups to be raffled off each week, including gift cards to shops in Fairfield and two-day passes to the Soundside Music Festival.
Additionally, students who attended the cleanup got vouchers for breakfast sandwiches and coffee. Senior Erin Resnick, says, “The turnout was pretty good—it’s smart to provide incentives because it increases attendance.”
Also speaking about the turnout, Caroline Amadon ‘26, who went along with the Women’s Rugby Team, added, “I thought that we were going to be the only group there, but there were a bunch of people who came with other teams, friends or just by themselves.”
When asked how the effort was received, Resnick says, “When we were out cleaning on Sunday, multiple people stopped us and thanked us for cleaning up. I think seeing the efforts made by students to build a community instead of just ‘trash’ was a good distinction made through the cleanup.”
Another senior living off-campus, Kate Enriquez ‘25, says, “Hearing full-time residents let us know how much they appreciated our work made the cleanup that much more rewarding. I will definitely be going to the next beach cleanup and I can assume by the large crowd of students this past week that many more off-campus stags will be spending their Sunday at the beach cleanup.”
Much like the off-campus students, Dean Berger is happy with the attendance. “We have been very pleased with the turnout these past two weekends and I would like to thank our students for being so dedicated to this important initiative,” she says.
It certainly seems as though the beach cleanups have been building a bridge between the full-time residents and students living off-campus, as well as a great way for the students to further connect with each other. And, the incentives seem to be doing their job well, too, successfully drawing larger crowds of students to the weekly cleanups.
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