One of the goals of the Greene County school district is to provide real-world learning opportunities for students, and that’s what took place last Wednesday, Nov. 4. Students and staff worked together, helped others, and demonstrated a work ethic, naming a few life skills used during the annual leaf-raking community service project. The project also provides students and staff a chance to show appreciation for the support communities provide to the schools.
This was the 23rd year of raking leaves for local high school students. In recent years, students have raked as many as 130 yards during an afternoon. This year’s project was smaller due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of yards raked was cut back to 45, and only about 100 students raked. That allowed groups to maintain social distancing as they raked.
In previous years, all students and staff have raked. This year, residents were asked to alert the school if they had no one to rake for them, and students indicated their interest in the project on a Google form. Participation was also voluntary for teachers. Teachers who didn’t head out to rake stayed behind and supervised classrooms for the teachers who raked.
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.
Students began raking about 10:30 am and took a break for school sack lunches. Four bus drivers took the students to their raking assignments and picked them up at the end of the day.
After the raking was finished, students and teachers gathered at Russell Park to have Breadeaux Pizza and Dunkers by Matt provided by Home State Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, Peoples Bank and Heartland Bank, all in Jefferson.
Teacher Teresa Green, organizer of the service project, thanked Fareway for donating bottled water and to HyVee for donating paper products and the banks for donating their donations.
She also thanked 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.
There was at least one pickup or garbage truck with each group which made everything run very smoothly. Green thanked Rotarians and other community members who drove pickups and trucks to haul the leaves to Daubendiek Park.
“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,” Green said.
