Keeping Antigonish Green After St Patrick's Day

Following the St. Patrick’s day festivities, Cleanup Canada hosted a Post-Pats Cleanup. The event provided students an opportunity to help their community.  Cleanup Canada collaborated with ALPACA (the Antigonish League of People Advocating for Climate Action) and the Town of Antigonish donated trash bags and gloves. Despite the snowfall, students were able to get outdoors and pick up over 16 bags of trash and refundables left behind following St. Patrick’s day parties. 

StFX St. Patrick’s day parties are known for gathering large groups of students from StFX and other maritime universities. These events, however, usually leave behind large amounts of garbage — whether that be food wrappers or beverage containers. The cleanup event is trying to minimize litter from remaining on the Town’s streets and instead put it towards supporting the campus community.   

Cleanup Canada, founded by Cameron Preyra — a third-year Public Policy and Governance student — started as a personal project. He created an Instagram page to inspire others to “spend their free time picking up litter,” says Cameron.  Since then, however, the initiative has grown. Previously Cleanup Canada held a Post-HoCo, Post-Halloweekend and a Post-St. Patrick’s day cleanup. The Instagram page also provides a space for those to share progress of their own community cleanups. 

Following the 2025 Homecoming, the Xaverian Leaders’s and Frank McKenna Center’s hosted a cleanup, and in just two hours collected 173lbs of garbage. Cameron participated in this event and believes the Post-Pats Cleanup had the same goal in mind, “to cleanup and do right by our community.” 

In addition to the cleanup event, a bottle drive will be taking place Monday, Mach 16th at 4:00PM. The refundables collected from both the Post-Pats cleanup and bottle drive will be returned to a recycling depot. The money collected will go to supporting the StFX Philosophy Society.  

If students have refundables they would like to contribute to Cleanup Canada, they can message the Instagram page, and a volunteer will pick them up. Below is a link to the Cleanup Canada Instagram page, where you can get information, participate in future cleanups, and schedule a pickup for St. Patrick’s Day refundables.  

Link to Cleanup Canada: https://www.instagram.com/cleanup.canada/