Give Back Day: Shasta Elementary Joins for Second Year
/
Shasta Elementary first-graders pick up litter and pull dandelions for Give Back Day on Thursday. Photo, Samantha Tippler.
More than 20 volunteers and more than 400 students spent Thursday giving back at Shasta Elementary School. Shasta joined the Klamath Falls City Schools and Blue Zones Project Klamath Falls for the fifth annual Give Back Day.
JJ Nichols volunteered from Les Schwab at Shasta Elementary for Give Back Day on Thursday. Photo, Samantha Tippler.
Students pulled weeds, picked up litter, planted native plants, spread out mulch, raked and swept up bark on the playground and stained the wooden play structures.
Adult volunteers and teachers supervised the children and took on the project to demolish and replace two ball walls.
“Our helpers today did an amazing job,” said Meghan Schols, president of the Shasta Elementary Booster Club. “Just getting it all put up and everyone working together. It looks so much better.”
Volunteers included parents, community members and friends from local businesses and government organizations. About six volunteers from the 173rd Fighter Wing, Kingsley Field, along with JJ Nichols, from Les Schwab, and other volunteers took on the ball wall project. Home Depot donated the materials for the new ball walls.
Volunteers from the 173rd Fighter Wing, Kingsley Field, take down the old ball wall at Shasta Elementary as part of Give Back Day on Thursday. Photo, Samantha Tippler.
“It’s gone remarkably well,” agreed Theresa Ross, Shasta PE teacher.
Students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade spent what would be their regular PE time on all their many projects. Sixth graders were at outdoor school this week, but helped out by painting the new wall ball boards last week.
One special project brought native plants to the Mrs. Polsinelli Memorial Garden, remembering a teacher who loved helping students learn about the outdoors. Akimi King, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, brought donated native plants, taught the students how to plant them and about the importance of native habitats.
Volunteers assemble new planks on the ball walls at Shasta Elementary for Give Back Day on Thursday. Photo, Samantha Tippler.
“The kids are always willing to work outside. I just love it,” King said. “They are so enthusiastic. They’re helpful. They’re a bunch of smiles all around.”
A few other KCSD schools took on projects to help out, too.
Students at Falcon Heights gave back on Thursday by helping box fruits and vegetables for the Produce Connection at the Klamath-Lake Counties Food Bank. Henley High FFA and Key Club guided Henley Elementary students in creating a pumpkin patch on the Henley Complex.
Akimi King, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, instructs Shasta Elementary students about how to use native plants to create habitats for species like the Monarch butterfly for Give Back Day. Photo, Samantha Tippler.
The Klamath County School District hosts a give back day for the rest of its schools in the fall. The first happened last October.
Press release and photography provided from Samantha Tippler, Public Relations, Klamath County School District.