Friday, April 17 was a day of beauty.
For WS’s Spring Beautification Day, hundreds of students from WS and the surrounding community came into school during one of those precious teacher workdays, and put in the work necessary to make this school beautiful.
Two hundred and fifty volunteers earned community service hours while improving our school landscaping. With a historical average of about 100 volunteers attending each event, this year’s spring cleanup was a record breaker. Mulch was spread, flowers were planted, trash was picked up and many hours of community service were collected.
Several groups, including WS Honor societies members, spring sports teams, and even NJHS members from Irving took advantage of this opportunity.
“I’m in NJHS and I need a few extra hours,” said Irving 8th grader Matthew Jones while at the Beautification Day. “I’ve picked up leaves, picked up the field, spread out mulch in the memorial garden, and then I came to the front and I’ve been doing the garden ever since. I would come again because it’s one of the easier ways to get hours.”
However, it isn’t all about requirements or getting points for a club. Beautification Day is also about the community of WS coming together to create a better to be.
Even though the school’s renovation is set to begin in 2015, the effort by this massive volunteer group is not in vain. The coordinators from the PTSA, Molly Gray and Denise Rodgers, both of whom are WS moms themselves, work to ensure that the places of focus for each Beautification Day will not be affected by the renovation.
“ We don’t want people to wait to make it nice until after the school is built,” said Gray.
This event has been at WS for nine years now, but it could not go on without the help of the adult volunteers, the custodial staff, and of course the student volunteers. WS staff members Betty Fawsett and Andy Muir also participate in the event. Even though the size of this last cleanup was record-breaking in student participants, there were only three adult volunteers who attended Beautification Day.
“To ensure that the program runs smoothly for our student participants, we hope to have more adult volunteers in the future, said Rogers. “There are many tasks and jobs that do not involve gardening expertise or physical labor, such as assisting with sign-in, purchase and serving of snacks and drinks and additional hands would be most welcome.”
From 8 AM and beyond, the school got its facelift and students got their service hours, as well as some donuts. Although currently, WS only hosts two Beautification Days a year, the coordinators are looking to increase that number to benefit both students and school. Even as WS heads into this renovation, students need not fret. Gray, Rogers, the custodians, and our student Beautification crew with students spanning Hunt Valley students to seniors at WS will keep our school looking great.
“10/10 would beautify again,” said senior George Morcos.