Sacramento State is considered a commuter school. Far more students commute to campus by car, bus or bikes than actually live on campus. As soon as their last class is over, most students will leave campus immediately and make their way to work or home.

SacStatement, better known as the Green and Gold campaign, put together by the students of the public relations department, hope to change Sacramento State’s definition of being a commuter school and bring more pride, involvement and recognition to the university.

The idea originally belonged to Timothy Howard, the professor of Coms 158. Each semester the class is assigned a campaign to bring awareness for a specific cause.

Past campaigns have involved bringing attention to the recent voting for the Event Center in fall 2014 and the “Healthy Hive” campaign which advocated for a tobacco-free campus.

The SacStatement campaign, which launched last week, hopes to reach out to students, faculty, staff, alumni and local businesses to increase Sac State pride.

“This is our alma mater, we need to be proud of where we came from,” said Ilian Cervantes, the Green and Gold Campaign director. “This is where we get our education.”

Cervantes is in charge of overseeing over 60 students involved in the campaign. The students are split into teams each with its own goal on how to bring more attention to the cause.

The teams include traditional media, students who are in charge of reaching out to local TV, radio and newspaper outlets; social media, spreading the word through social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram; and the external outreach team, students who are in charge of informing alumni, transfers and prospective students of SacStatement.

Since its launch, the campaign has encouraged students, staff and faculty to wear green and gold on Thursdays to show their school pride and spirit.

“We’re not asking the students and staff to do much,” said Marc Brown, internal outreach director. “There was a pretty good increase this past Thursday of green and gold.”

According to the team members of the campaign, they hope to reach out to as many people on and off campus as possible.

“We’ve been going to the organizations and clubs on campus and asking them to support by wearing green and gold,” Brown said. “The sororities and fraternities respond really well but we’re having a little bit of trouble with the faculty and staff.”

Brown hopes the faculty and staff will help encourage the students to have more pride in their school.

“We want to start a legacy and not just have this be a semester thing,” Cervantes said. “It is important to instill culture and Hornet pride in the students.”

So far the feedback for the campaign has been well received and students are slowly becoming aware of SacStatement.

“I heard about it through Instagram, they came to the frat and my frat brother told me to go follow them on Instagram,” said Ryan Allain, senior and vice president of ASI Academic Affairs. “I’m going to be wearing green and gold on Thursday.”

As for what’s to come, the students are currently working on a “Hornet Swarm,” a campus wide walk that could include the various clubs, organizations, athletes and band to encourage the people on campus to take part in spreading Hornet pride.

Other ideas to spread awareness for SacStatement include designing and producing t-shirts.

Recently, the external outreach team has been able to get the word out through a local radio station to let the community know of their campaign.

“We’re gathering contacts around Sacramento,” Collins said. “This is only going to be as successful as we want to make it.”

The Green and Gold campaign is working to boost the university’s visibility and add value to those with degrees and those hoping to obtain a degree from Sac State.

“We want the alumni to tell people how having Hornet pride carries past your time at Sac State,” said Cervantes.