Volunteers, alumni clean up campus during Spartan Sunday

LANSING, Mich. (WNEM) - Michigan State University students continue to grapple with how to move forward after tragedy while classes are set to resume Monday, one week after the mass shooting. It’s what inspired a tremendous outpouring of love and support Sunday on campus.

On the banks of the Red Cedar River, community members could be can seen contributing flowers, food, and cleaning trash along the river.

“My daughter is our first year senior this year, and I miss you and then obviously with our connection being with him in Hartland, we obviously needed to do something here,” said Tracy McGrew, a parent from Hartland.

Others were giving hugs.

“We are former coworkers at Northwest in Jackson and there are a lot of moms and a lot of students up here that are alums and current students,” one woman said. “As an educator who has a son up here. It was the least that we could do to come back up here to help support the kids.”

The heartwarming effort was the reason some students smiled this week, for many others, this is the first time returning to campus; shedding tears at the memorial.

MSU alumna and Saginaw native Meredith Friend came up with the idea to share the Spartan spirit. What she thought would be a small event quickly went viral, drawing at least an estimated couple thousand Spartans at heart.

“It started off as maybe it’s like I’m in 20 or 30 of us and we’re gonna pick up trash around campus and I’m getting bags and before we knew it in four days we had raised over $23,000 to buy donations and items for students. Meijer reached out to us. Pepsi reached out to us on the way,” Friend said.

Some booths at the gathering were providing mental health resources, reminding everyone they are not alone.

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