PHS Cares
Palatka High School students raked dirt, hosed down pavement and pulled heaps of garbage from a creek in Wednesday’s 90-plus-degree heat in an effort to clean up their school.
Palatka High School Chef Krister Bjorn led his culinary art students in the cleanup after he said an informal classroom poll found about 30 percent of them said they were not embarrassed to admit throwing trash from their cars.
PHS freshman Kimberly Usry raked dirt, preparing for a garden at the back of the culinary art’s classroom. She said some of her friends think little of throwing trash from the windows of cars.
“I’m not happy about it,” Usry said. “They look at me like I’m stupid when I say something.”
Bjorn said he hopes that by example, students will be compelled to stop littering. He plans to make the PHS cleanup a weekly event.
“What piles up around the school in a week is amazing,” Bjorn said.
On Wednesday, Bjorn pulled an old tire from the creek along Mellon Road with a small garden rake. It joined mounds of beer bottles, plastic and fast-food containers in wheelbarrows manned by the students. Nearby, a crowd of angry bull ants disturbed from their beer-can home scattered.
“It’s bad for the environment,” PHS freshman Justin Wessel said of the garbage collecting around the school.
Bjorn said his students were eager to participate when he mentioned the project.
“We’re trying to raise awareness,” Bjorn said. “We all need to take pride in the surroundings.”
