ROGERS -- Carolyn Covey gazed upon more than 30 large, yellow trash bags lining the tree lawn in front of her home Saturday on South Fourth Street.
Each bag was packed with leaves, all raked and collected by Heritage High School students who volunteered to do the job. Covey was impressed.
At A Glance
Rogers Leaf Pickup
Inland Services will pick up bagged leaves for Rogers residents Monday through Friday. This will be the final leaf pickup for the year. Bags should be on the curb by 7 a.m. depending on the day trash is collected in each neighborhood. Bags should be at least 2 feet from the trash and recycling containers and not in drainage ditches, according to Inland Services.
Source: Staff Report
"I think it's awesome," she said. "The kids are great, hard workers."
Saturday was Heritage's Community Leaf Removal Day, a chance for students to do something kind for their neighbors.
Several dozen students broke into teams to rake leaves at 17 homes in the high school's neighborhood. The neighbors had been notified about the service beforehand and were invited to sign up for it.
It was the second time the school tried such a thing. The first time was in 2012. Bad weather forced officials to cancel last year's Leaf Removal Day.
"The idea is to help mainly people who are elderly or disabled or who are out of work," said Brig Caldwell, Heritage's student relations coordinator and community liaison. "But we'll put anyone on the list. It's a completely free service."
Chris Trivitt, chairman of the school's public service academy, said it's also a good way for students to get to know people in the community.
The raking started around 8 a.m. Saturday. Caldwell said they probably would continue working until the early afternoon. He picked up 300 trash bags for the event and said he expected all of them would be used.
The participating students get more than just a few community service hours to list on their applications for college or college scholarships.
"When you get students in non-academic settings like this, they learn more about each other and themselves," Caldwell said.
Mounika Seeram and Guadalupe Garduno, both Heritage seniors, were two of six students raking a large yard at the corner of South Sixth and West Cypress streets.
Garduno decided she could fit the activity in despite working late at her job Friday night and having to do another seven-hour shift Saturday. She admitted taking time out Saturday morning to jump in a pile of leaves.
"It's fun," she said.
Seeram said she didn't realize how big the yard was until they started raking.
"But it's fun, and the people we've met are very sweet," Seeram said.
A few blocks away, another team of volunteers -- Jose Carabantes, Mason Crawford, Amber Crowe, Brayan Ordaz and Katelyn Klaassen -- had just finished up in Covey's yard.
"It's nice to just surprise people with these kinds of things," said Amber, 14. Covey was very friendly and provided refreshments to the students, Amber said.
Covey has lived at her Fourth Street home for two years. She has six large trees in her backyard. She did all the raking herself the first year she lived there.
"It's a daunting task," Covey said. "The students did all of this (raking) in two hours. It's a great help."
NW News on 12/14/2014