MARYSVILLE — Less than a couple of weeks after complaints about unkempt schools were made in Marysville, close to 100 volunteers descended upon Grove Elementary and Marysville-Pilchuck High School, as well as an assortment of local parks and Little League fields, to show how much they care about their community.
“I Heart Marysville,” a campaign led by the Marysville First Assembly Church, worked volunteers for full-day shifts from Monday, Aug. 6, through Friday, Aug. 10, at Grove Elementary to clear out thistles and weeds, as well as trim back and tend overgrown landscaped plants. At M-PHS, teams repainted the building exteriors, while the Little League fields’ dugouts were re-roofed and repaired, and their scoreboards were cleared of graffiti. While the Marysville School District supplied beauty bark and trucks to collect waste, in addition to supervision from maintenance staff, the actual labor was conducted by crews of volunteers who were often young enough to be students themselves, albeit not quite young enough to be attending Grove Elementary.
“The schools can’t do it for themselves,” said Bailey Downey, 13, when asked why she sacrificed her summer vacation to sweat in the sun.
“It’s good to do work for the community,” agreed Natalie Cormier, 12, as they joined 12-year-old Emily Hoot in dumping weeds and brush clippings into the district’s truck.
Evan Westfield, 19, and Joshua Harris, 17, both believe that such works are ways of putting their religious beliefs into practice.
“We show God’s love by serving the community,” Westfield said.
“It really is, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’” Harris said.
“It’s up to us to make these kids feel welcome, in their schools and on their play fields,” said Cody Hjort, 15. “We have to show some initiative, because we’re the older kids, so we’re setting the example for them.”
Marysville First Assembly Children’s Pastor Fawnda Faucett emphasized that this week of cleanup was planned as far back as October of last year, so the timing of its start with the news stories about Grove was purely coincidental.
“Our church is part of this community,” Faucett said. “We live here, work here and send our kids to school here, so we want it to look better.”
