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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us October 3, 2005 Students volunteer to volunteer New AHS class teaches kids community service By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings Leadership class students , from left, juniors Colin Hagie and Jesika Theos, senior exchange student Maen Abouziki and junior Clay Davidson, hang over the poster they made with all the lunchtime litter collected on Tuesday. Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings Lists of ideas cover the dry-erase boards in the back of Ashland High teacher Aaron Sturdevant’s classroom — picking up trash near Safeway, organizing a battle of the bands, beautifying the flowerbeds on campus. Two sheets of butcher paper cover the yellow door leading into a Spanish classroom with more projects. Fixing benches tops the list. Painting and landscaping on campus rank up there as well. The 30 students in Sturdevant’s leadership class hope to finish everything by the end of the semester. It’s a lot of work, they realize, but it’s something each chooses to do. “I really want to help out in the community and feel good about what I do,” 16-year-old junior Sarah Holgren said. Rejuvenating an “abandoned lunch area” and painting a mural in the Commons are some of Holgren’s favorite projects. For junior Zach Pinder, 16, making the battle of the bands a fixture during the lunch hour is important. “My main goal with it is I want students to take ownership of the school,” the teacher said, explaining that the class emphasizes volunteerism and pride in one’s community. On Tuesday, students filled four trash bags with litter left on campus and along Siskiyou Boulevard from AHS to Safeway. Back in the classroom, they glued, taped and stapled scraps of paper, candy wrappers, Frappechino bottles and paper cups to a long strip of black paper. They hung the trash poster on the quad with an orange sign to show other students how big of a mess can be created in a single day. The litter on campus clearly diminished that day, but students hope their efforts will have a lasting effect, to inspire others to care for the campus as well. “One, it will make the school look nicer,” Sturdevant said. “Hopefully that will lead to reducing the vandalism and the litter.” The mix of students — freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors are enrolled in the course, including an exchange student from Lebanon — wanted to be involved in a leadership class without competing for a student government position. Maybe they lost an election, maybe they wanted to avoid the pressure of running for office. The majority of them have taken a class from Sturdevant in the past and are “a group I would have hand-picked myself,” he said. The students volunteered to take the course, which is being offered for the first time. And it’s all about cleaning up the school and creating community — in Thursday’s class students did team-building activities — plus the time kids spend in class go to the 100 hours of community service required to graduate from Ashland High. “I have a really busy schedule, so this takes time during the day to be interactive and help in the community,” said junior Shanndara McNamara, 17. “We work together and we have fun with it.” Staff writer Jennifer Squires can be reached at 482-3456 x 3019 or [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams