VCU news

By Alexandra Klingelhut

VCU Police Chief John Venuti hates trash. He hates trash so much that VCU Police Academy cadets are warned their first week of training that Venuti will grow angry if they pass a piece of trash and ignore it.

To reinforce the lesson, cadets participated in a community-oriented fitness challenge on Jan. 18. They were given trash bags and told to pick up as much trash as they could during a run through the neighborhoods of the VCU police jurisdiction.

The cadets collected a total of 389 pounds of trash over the course of the 40-minute run.

Venuti and Chris Preuss, VCU Police’s assistant chief, lead weekly fitness challenges for the police academy cadets.

“We try to make it challenging and fun for them and exercise is a big deal to the chief¯fitness is a big deal for him,” said Preuss.

Each week, the cadets split into two teams to complete their fitness challenge, which may include running stairs, push-ups and a fun run.

This week, Venuti decided it would be a good idea to have the cadets collect trash while completing their run. They were given instructions to pick up any garbage they found on the street but no cheating was tolerated, such as taking trash from dumpsters. They also had to stay together as a group and keep the trash they collected for the duration of the run.

While running through the Carver neighborhood, members of the community took notice of the cadets picking up trash and were curious to know what they were doing.

“It was a good opportunity to engage the community and explain who the VCU Police Academy cadets were,” Preuss said. “People were actually saying thank you.”

The goal was to do something community-oriented with physical fitness, said Preuss. The competition had a great response and the cadets loved the activity.

Preuss says he underestimated the amount of trash they would pick up and actually had to go back to the station to get more bags. Preuss’ team won the challenge with 226 pounds of trash. Venuti’s team finished with 163 pounds.

The fitness challenge has a tradition where the losing team has to endure a punishment picked by the winning team. Due to the nature of the activity, the losing team this week had to sort through the trash collected and pick out the recyclable materials for recycling. The rest of the trash was disposed of properly.

Preuss plans on making the trash run a regular activity because everyone benefits from it.

The VCU police academy cadets are in their eighth week of training and are set to graduate April 12.

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