Great Green Help builds awareness of community
Shoveling mulch, junior Piper Rogers fills up wheel barrells to be carried to flower beds. Around 100 juniors volunteered for Great Green Help. “My favorite part was seeing all of the smiles and hard work that people put in despite the rain,” Rogers said.
Walking out of the school, junior Cameron Hodge expected to learn something new during the day. Hodge and 90 other juniors went out to nine different locations to extend a helping hand to the communities in Lawrence that need assistance with keeping their surroundings clean and green.
Great Green Help started out as a school improvement plan and evolved into a StuCo project. According to health teacher and StuCo leader Jane Rock. When the school opened there were no freshmen, StuCo thought sophomores were too young and seniors were on their way out according to Rock
Junior Emma Stramberg pulls weed. A total of 270 hours of community service were completing during the Great Green Help project. “I wanted to find a way to give back to the community that I hadn’t ever done before,” Stramberg said.
Juniors who signed up went to several different locations including South Park, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Hidden Valley Girl Scout camp, an independent living that works with senior adults, Theater Lawrence ,and elementary schools.
Theatre Lawrence is an organization that relies on volunteers in landscaping, as most people prefer to do theatre related tasks instead, according to marketing director Kelly Pratt.
“Having a group of young people with lot of energy and enthusiasm and just making things look good out there is pretty great.” executive director Mary Doveton said.
Finding volunteers to help with landscaping at this time of the year is hard according to Fred Victor, an instructor who has four years of landscaping experience.
Students who participated gained a better awareness of the volunteering opportunities.
Working on landscaping, junior Brit Fernandez volunteers with her class. Juniors volunteered at various locations across Lawrence. “I enjoy helping others and I wanted to help out around the community,” Fernandez said.
“Now I know [Theatre Lawrence] needs work around here, I hope to volunteer for them more in other ways,” junior Britney Fernandez said.
Hodge reflected on the adventure and what the experience meant to him.
“It’s important that we go out and help people [in] our community,” Hodge said. “It was a good experience and I would do definitely do this even if wasn’t a school oriented program”
