McCombs “Trash Bash” Cleans Up Southside Neighborhood
More than 200 McCombs students took to the streets to clean up their neighborhood.
You hear it all the time. We need to educate the kids so they can clean up all the messes left to them. Seen in that context today’s Earth Day Trash Bash collaboration between the Des Moines Parks and Recreation Department and the McCombs Golden Eagles was a metaphoric head start.
Some 200 students patrolled and scoured the school grounds and a wide swath of the surrounding area along the school district’s southern boundary on a beautiful Friday afternoon. Right next door a golf course was doing brisk business. In fact, one of the entries in the “most unusual item” contest was a golf ball that found its way out of bounds. Others included a strand of Christmas garland, some deodorant and a Cadillac hubcap.
Seventh graders Matthew Gedenberg and Ashlee Douglass said they’d normally have been in math class when they were out and about with litter tweezers supplied by the Metro Waste Authority and big orange plastic trash bags. Had it been cold and wet they might have wished they were inside. But the weather was so pleasant that policing the grounds hardly seemed a chore. Besides, they’re getting used to Golden Eagles community service projects.
“The Golden Eagles are a leadership group,” Ashlee said with soft-spoken pride. “We keep our grades and attendance up and do service projects like this to earn cool rewards like parties and field trips.”
Matthew grinned and nodded as he and Ashlee continued their patrol in a shady area of the school’s expansive, green campus.
Teacher Tracy Van Winkle and AmeriCorps assignee Fatma Bachelani, herself a McCombs alum, said the Golden Eagles are making a difference in their first year of existence.
“The kids are beginning to take ownership,” said Van Winkle. “They are becoming positive influences on one another.”
And Bachelani is impressed in more ways than one.
“I’m happy for the kids, to see them so engaged in something positive,” she explained, “and I’m also glad for something like this project in this neighborhood since I went to school here myself.”
McCombs got involved as one of the Trash Bash teams when Captain and School Improvement Leader Ryan Sharp was approached by Craig Shepard from the City of Des Moines. On behalf of the Golden Eagles he jumped at the invitation.
“Last I heard we’ve got one of the biggest teams in town,” he beamed. “Only Principal Financial Group has more troops involved in the Trash Bash than we do.”
Last year 1,400 volunteers on 60 teams in 80 project locations removed over 67,000 pounds of litter, brush and recyclables. They even collected 37 pounds of cigarette butts as part of the Big Buttowski competition. And that was without the considerable assistance of the Golden Eagles. Look for record-breaking totals in 2014 by the time all of the McCombs squads have made their deposits in the big garbage truck that was parked in the school parking lot Friday like a trashy piggy bank.
The Golden Eagles, their school and their neighborhood are looking mighty shiny this weekend.
