Several residents of Birch, Welch and Roberts residence halls spent the unseasonably warm weekend outside helping others.

The group of residents from the all-male buildings call themselves Boys with Rakes, or BWR — the same abbreviation tacked onto their residence halls. During the weekend, they picked up their rakes and volunteered time and labor.

Approximately 50 members raked from 9 a.m. until noon and cleaned about 30 yards. The community service benefited Ames residents who could not rake their yards themselves, such as the elderly or disabled.

Bryan Steussy, sophomore in biochemistry and a resident adviser in Birch Hall, said the group placed ads in local newspapers describing their service.

He said although only five people responded to the ads, the group kept on raking long after those yards were finished.

“We just randomly raked yards, which was a lot of fun,” Steussy said. “A lot of people were asking us how much it cost. They were really apprehensive of something free.”

Once residents learned what the boys were doing, Steussy said they were eager to show their appreciation.

“A lot of people thanked us and gave us brownies, lemonade and pop,” he said. “They were really welcoming it.”

Ames resident Edith Rogers saw an ad for Boys with Rakes in the Ames Tribune and asked the group to rake her lawn.

“They were the nicest boys,” she said. “They just did a beautiful job and we’re very grateful because we couldn’t have done it [ourselves].”

Steussy said the idea came from a community service project he had done in high school. He said the high participation numbers were due to hall presidents encouraging residents to get involved.

“People caught on,” Steussy said. “They were like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea and a lot of the people had fun.”

Michael Dusing, sophomore in pre-advertising and resident of Welch Hall, said the event provided an opportunity for residence hall students to get involved in the community.

“Residence halls don’t actually do that much community service around here,” he said. “It’s mostly fraternities and sororities [providing community service]. So we wanted to show that resident halls do care about the community.”

Dusing said approximately $300 in rakes and bagging supplies were purchased with hall money. Many halls use that money for things such as pizza parties or hall challenges, but Dusing said Birch-Welch-Roberts decided to do something that would benefit not only their own hall, but the entire Ames community.

He said Richardson Court Residence Association declined to fund the event because not enough members of RCA were participating.

“We were kind of disappointed about that,” he said.

John Shertzer, residence life coordinator, said there is much community service that goes on in the residence halls most people are unaware of. However, he said the Boys with Rakes project stands out as one of the more involved projects.

“Boys with Rakes is a unique initiative and one of the best community service projects I’ve seen at Iowa State,” he said.

Steussy said the event provided a way for members of Birch-Welch-Roberts to get to know each other.

“It really kind of united the whole hall,” he said. “They enjoyed it. They jumped in the piles of leaves — we had a lot of fun with it.”

Shertzer said BWR is an example of what residence halls can do together.

“I do hope that other residence halls and residence houses can look at BWR as a good example and follow their lead in providing community service to the Ames community,” he said.

Steussy said his group hopes to make Boys with Rakes an annual event.