Local high school plans annual winterization project

For nearly three decades the students have cleaned gutters, raked leaves and helped the elderly in the community.

A service learning class at Greenwood Community High School and a student group that helps elementary and middle school students have fanned out to the homes of senior citizens in their community and done large yard and upkeep projects to help them prepare their homes for the winter.

This Saturday, they will uphold the tradition.

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About 150 students and chaperones will go to about about 30 homes this weekend to make sure that the elderly in their community have homes that are ready for the season ahead.

The winterization project started 26 years ago when a service learning class and peer mentor group at Greenwood Community High School decided they wanted to team up on a project, service learning teacher Meghan Ferguson said.

A class that was made to help the community around them and a group meant to mentor younger students pioneered the project and decided that the elderly in the community needed help.

The students and teachers wanted a way to help the community and initiated the project. For years, the project continued as some of the same homeowners receive the help year after year, Ferguson said.

“It is just really nice for the homeowners,” she said.

Students are 100 percent responsible for planning the logistics of the project. They contact the homeowners and make arrangements to see the homes and assess what may be done. They solicit donations for food and supplies for that day and work to let the community know what they are doing, Ferguson said.

“It is really hands off for us; it is completely student run,” she said.

Finding about 30 homeowners who could be helped by the service is word of mouth, with faculty and students knowing homeowners who might need the help. About 20 homeowners have received help from the project before, Ferguson said.

All of the costs associated with the project, such as supplies and food for the students, are covered by local business donations.

Students are driven by what they see the need is in the community, Jackson Griesemer, a senior at Greenwood Community High School said.

“Most of the people’s homes that we winterize are physically incapable of doing it,” he said.

Winterization has been one of the main projects for students in the service learning class because it allows the students a way to invest in a project that betters their community. And they get real life skills, Ferguson said.

“It really helps them with communication and real life skills they need after high school,” she said.

Each student that is in the class chose it as an extracurricular and had to interview to before they could be enrolled in the class, Ferguson said.

“We want to make sure we get the kids who care and want to do good things,” she said.