Greene County High School’s annual leaf raking service project topped last year’s total by five, with students raking 138 yards in Jefferson, Scranton and Grand Junction. Students, teachers, and community volunteers enjoyed temperatures in the low 70s as they raked the afternoon of Tuesday, Nov. 1. According to teacher Teresa Green, the project allows students to show their appreciation for everything the communities do for the schools.
This was the 20th year students have raked leaves as a service project.
Green first organized the leaf raking project as advisor of the Interact Club in 1997 when only 10 yards and about 20 students raked. The project had outgrown the Interact Club by 1999, but Green still does the organizing. She develops a list of senior residents and others with special concerns, and then assigns groups and yards according to location and size. As groups finish their assigned yards, they help others in the same neighborhood.
Green thanked the Jefferson Fareway store for donating 43 cases of water, and Home State Bank, Peoples Trust & Savings Bank and Wells Fargo for donating 74 dozen donuts. The Jefferson Rotary Club donated leaf bags and tarps.
She thanked the city of Jefferson for providing three garbage trucks in Jefferson, New Way for providing one in Scranton, and the city of Grand Junction and the Grand Junction office of Peoples Trust & Savings Bank for providing pickup trucks in Grand Junction. The Jefferson city crews prepared the leaf dump site at Daubendiek Park to receive the overload of leaves and cleaned the site afterward.
Rotary Club members and local volunteers drove 37 pickup trucks to help transport leaves to the garbage trucks or Daubendiek Park. Sixteen other community volunteers help rake and chaperone students, and Greene County graduate Jensen Ruzicka and 12 of his Iowa State fraternity brothers helped rake as part of their community service.
The school provided bus transportation to the various neighborhoods and used a school-owned pickup truck and trailer to help transport leaves.
Middle school teachers Tom Braun and Spencer Bauer and their classes raked, as did Intermediate School teachers Ryan Eberly, Cassie Bardole, Doug Brown, Whitney Hoyle and Heather Manken and their classes. A total of 842 persons participated in the project.
“It takes a lot of people to make a project like this come together,” Green said. “This was great having our school work with various groups to give back to our communities. We appreciate all of the help from each of these groups. We could not have completed their project without their help.”
Forty-nine Paton-Churdan students spent Tuesday afternoon raking 13 yards at home and one church lawn. Volunteers cleaned gutters at two homes and even washed windows for one homeowner. F
The school thanked Dave and Jess Trecker, Chris Anderson and Scranton Manufacturing for providing a truck to haul away leaves.
High school students had no class Friday afternoon as a bonus for having raked on Tuesday.
