A brightly colored male peacock casually disregarded 35 MSU students sitting on picnic tables at Potter Park Zoo on Sunday afternoon.
The group, not including the blue-and-green bird, waited for a John Deere tractor to deliver them to a scattering of brush.
The students were part of the National Gandhi Day of Service, an event celebrated by 7,000 students at 200 universities nationwide.
The MSU Coalition of Indian Undergraduate Students, or CIUS, sponsored the local event. More than 100 students gathered at Erickson Hall on Sunday to visit four sites in the area, including the zoo at 1301 Pennsylvania Ave. in Lansing, where they picked up branches and raked dead leaves and grass.
"There are days like (Martin Luther King Jr.) Day, but there's really not any one date for Gandhi," said Vikash Shah, CIUS social chair and supply chain management sophomore. "We want to celebrate him this way and represent our people."
The students cleaned and painted areas at Walter French Academy, Potter Park Zoo, Hawk Island Park and Beekman Center Elementary School.
"I just felt like helping out," said Nilam Patel, a medical technology junior bundled in a sweatshirt and wearing pigtails. "I didn't know what I was getting into, but it's a really nice day and I'm actually enjoying the work."
She took a break to talk as she waited for a new tractor to arrive. Her group had filled the first tractor with brush in less than five minutes.
Potter Park maintenance worker Grace Cook said she appreciated the volunteers' help, because there are only four extra summer workers.
"In another couple of weeks, we're down to three people to maintain the entire park," she said. "Brush really wears on the mowers, so we're hoping all the time for people to help us out."
Members of CIUS volunteered for Into the Streets on previous Gandhi days, but this year they branched out on their own. This was possible, in part, because of their increased resources, Shah said.
CIUS's spring music and dance program, Satrang, moved from the Wharton Center to the Breslin Center last year, catapulting attendance and producing more funding for the group.
And CIUS attendance at general meetings has spiked, too, Shah said. More than 200 students attend the meetings every other Thursday in the basement of McDonel Hall.
"We don't want this to be a secluded organization any more," education junior Sushma Lohitsa said. "We want to teach people about Gandhi and our traditions because it's so important to our heritage."
