One of the goals for our school district is to provide real-world learning opportunities for our students, and we did just that this past Wednesday, November 4th. We worked together, we helped others, and we demonstrated our work ethic to name just a few of the life skills that we used with our leaf-raking community-service project. This also gave us an opportunity to show our appreciation for everything our communities do for our schools.
Thank you to everyone who played a role in the success of our 2020 leaf-raking project as we celebrate our 23rd year of raking yards. This project was started in 1997 with our Interact Club raking fifteen to twenty yards. In 1999, the project became so big that our high school decided to continue the tradition as a school project.
Due to the Covid pandemic, we reduced the number of yards we raked down to 45 from last year’s list of 130 yards along with reducing the number of students who helped with this project. Residents were asked to call the high school if they did not have anyone in the area to help them with their leaves. We needed to keep the number of yards low to help with social distancing in our groups. Everything was totally voluntary this year. Students filled out a Google form if they wanted to volunteer, and the teachers also volunteered. The teachers who did not rake were a big help, too, by supervising the classrooms for the teachers who did rake.
The list of yards was divided up according to location, and teachers and their groups raked three to eight yards depending on the size of the yards and how many people were in their group. As each group finished, they helped other groups who were in the same area.
After we finished raking, we all met at Russell Park to have Breadeaux Pizza and Dunkers by Matt which was provided to us by the four banks in Jefferson. Students had some time to play basketball and relax with their friends before the food arrived. The weather was absolutely perfect with temperatures in the low 70s.
Thank you to Fareway for donating water and to HyVee for donating paper products. Thank you to Heartland Bank, Home State Bank, People’s Bank, and Wells Fargo for donating pizzas from Breadeaux and for donating donut holes from Dunkers by Matt.
Thank you to the school cooks who prepared sack lunches for everyone to eat while we were raking. Thank you to the school transportation department for providing four buses and drivers to move our students to their locations.
Thank you to Dave Teeples, Bill McDowell, Mike Wallace, and the city of Jefferson for getting everything cleaned out of Daubendiek Park before and after our leaf-raking project.
We had at least one pickup or garbage truck with each group which made everything run very smoothly. Thank you to the Rotarians and community members who drove pickups and trucks to haul the leaves to Daubendiek Park.
Thank you to the staff and student body from Greene County High School.
We raked 45 yards with 150 people, ate 42 dozen donut holes, 42 large pizzas, drank 13 cases of water, used 22 tarps, and had a fun time on a sunny afternoon with temps in the low 70s.
It takes a lot of people to make a project like this come together, and we want everyone to know how much we appreciate their help. It was great having our school work with various groups to give back to our communities. We are thankful for all of the help from each of these groups. We could not complete this project without everyone’s support.
By Teresa Green