By Andy Foltz
NKyTribune Reporter
Walton and Verona woke up to a battalion of volunteers waging war on weeds for senior citizens over the weekend. It was part of the 6th annual Wake Up Walton-Verona community service project spearheaded by Walton-Verona High School students.
“It’s a great project for the kids, and it’s a great project for us seniors to receive. I’m widowed now, so it’s a big help to me,” said Liz Poore, who has benefitted from the project each year of its existence. Poore had students raking, mulching, weeding and planting flowers at her house, services that might otherwise have gone undone or proven cost-prohibitive.
“I’m an alumni, so I stay in contact with the school.”
Poore has been in her Alta Vista Drive home for 39 years, and like most homeowners takes pride in its appearance.
“My parents are 90, and when they were still in their home, they had this house they loved but they couldn’t keep it up,” said Peggy Schutzman, the teacher facilitator for Wake Up Walton-Verona.
In addition to the community service aspect, the project also serves to bridge generation gaps, said Schutzman, who is a social studies teacher at the high school and also facilitates the Y club at the school.
“We’ve found the seniors in the area are always excited that teenagers will come to their houses and do this kind of work,” she said. “There is so much negative out there about teens – and some of that is real – but when you can get hundreds to come out on a Saturday and do something like this says a lot.”
“The kids really look forward to it,” she added. “It’s all they talk about the last two weeks leading up to it, ‘Are you doing Wake Up? Whose team are you on?’”
This year, 350 volunteers took part in the event, using 900 bags of mulch and planting 734 flowers at 52 homes in the Walton and Verona communities. All of the mulch, flowers, and the breakfast provided for the volunteers are funded by grants and donations from local businesses.
Hannah Flynn, a senior, served as this year’s student coordinator, helping to prepare the event and mailing flyers to local businesses for donations.
“It’s a huge deal to me,” Flynn said. “I grew up here in Walton, and it’s nice to be able to continue this tradition. More than half the school is here.”
Flynn, who plans to attend Northern Kentucky University in the fall and study Electronic Media and Broadcast, also helped organize teams of volunteers the morning of the event, getting them T shirts, and spoke to different school clubs and the Board of Education to spread awareness and gain volunteers.
Schutzman said the event has come a long way from the first year, when the event was formed to help students get service hours to attend a state Y club event. That year saw 70 volunteers work at 12 homes. Since then, the project has grown each year. Local businesses such as Cummins, Clarion, and Citi also send teams to help.
Schutzman and other volunteers are hoping that this project continues to grow, and not just in Walton and Verona.
“Ideally, we’d like to inspire other schools to do this,” Schutzman said. “There are plenty of other communities where this project would work.”