High school graduates are traditionally in the role of receivers of gifts, but on Friday, May 22, seniors from Saratoga Springs High School sought to reverse that trend by participating in a Senior Give Back Day and donating their time all over their community.
The program is in its second year. Last May, 217 students spent part of their days volunteering. This year, participation has grown to 275 students, or over 60 percent of the senior class. Students sign up for the program early in the year, and the idea is to show appreciation to the area.
These kids have been supported for 13 years, not just by their families and schoolteachers, but by parts of the community. This is an effort to give something back, said Richard DeMartino, co-advisor for the National Honor Society and school psychologist.
Though the program is run through the NHS, participants are from the entire student body. Students volunteered for four hours on Friday morning, meaning that they contributed well over 1,000 hours of work. Transportation to the 24 work sites all around the community was provided by the school district.
Much of the work was done in Friday’s fine weather, as students did grounds work, planted gardens and cleaned window at locations like Yaddo, the YMCA and several of the district’s elementary schools. A contingent of one dozen students had the Saratoga Children’s Museum all to themselves for a top-to-bottom spring-cleaning.
`They were absolutely superb,` said Jane Wait of the Yaddo Gardens Association, who also praised the goal of the program as `bringing young people up to being aware of what the community needs and pointing them in those directions.`
The Best Beds Project, which is aimed at improving facilities for backstretch workers at the racetrack, received help flower planting and general beautification at the backstretch dormitories.
All of the work that students did on Friday will continue giving back to the community, but the installation of a `Peace Garden` at the Presbyterian-New England Church on Circular Street will provide a direct benefit to the area’s needy with ingredients for the Economic Opportunity Council’s soup kitchen.
Those vegetables will also be part of the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Eat Smart New York program. Siobhan A’Hearn, who works with Eat Smart, said she will use them for cooking classes at the soup kitchen to teach self sufficient and healthy eating habits.
She also said she hopes to see Saratoga Springs students back at the garden next year to help with improvements.
`We’re already anticipating next year as being bigger and better,` A’Hearn said. She added that some of the volunteers inquired about getting involved in Eat Smart on Friday.
`I think it gives the kids a great world view as to what they can do on a small scaleit’s a great thing to learn at a young age,` she said.
Helping out area agencies like the Salvation Army or the Best Beds Project also exposes students to a side of their community they may not have seen before. The program is aimed at teaching the students about the work they are doing.
`At each of the sites, our kids will interface with the directors of the agencies,` DeMartino said. `Most of our kids do not know that they feed 15 people a morning at the Salvation Army. Those things are fairly quiet operations.`
Graduation for the class of 2009 has been scheduled for 9 a.m., Thursday, June 25, at Saratoga Performing Arts Center.“