Greene County High School seniors weren’t born yet the first year members of the Jefferson-Scranton Interact Club raked about a dozen yards of elderly residents as a service project.
The project grew quickly after its inception in 1997 and became an school-wide project in 1999. The project has continued. The 21st annual leaf raking service project, done under sunny skies and temperatures in the mid 50s, was done last Thursday, Nov. 2.
Students raked 134 yards in Jefferson, Scranton and Grand Junction.
According to teacher Teresa Green, the project allows students to show their appreciation for everything the communities do for the schools.
Green has organized the project every year. 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 and Hy-Vee stores for donating 36 cases of water each, and Home State Bank, Peoples Trust & Savings Bank and Wells Fargo for donating 64 dozen donuts. The Jefferson Rotary Club donated leaf bags and tarps.
She thanked the city of Jefferson for providing two garbage trucks in Jefferson, New Way for providing a garbage truck and a pickup truck 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 39 pickup trucks to help transport leaves to the garbage trucks or Daubendiek Park. Vern Foje and Dave Walker went out on their own to finish some of the yards, Green said.
Middle school teachers Tom Braun, Spencer Bauer and Sean Thompson and their classes raked, too. A total of 722 persons participated in the project. That was 120 fewer persons than last year, but only four fewer yards were raked.
“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,” Green said. “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.”
