Tech students pitch in to clean up parks

LYNN – English teacher Jason McCuish wrangled 500 students spread over 13 parks, who put in roughly 1,500 man hours worth of labor during Tuesday’s Lynn Vocational Technical Institute’s school wide Community Service Day.”The best thing about this is all the kids wanted to be here,” McCuish said. “They didn’t have to do this but they all wanted to be a part of this.”This is the third year the school has conducted park cleanups and it is by far the most ambitious outing. The original project grew out of a conversation McCuish had with some of his students about having a social conscience, he said.”We talked about giving back, and the kids kept saying they wanted to do a park cleanup,” he said.View a photo galleryIt has grown over the years, but this is the first year it has been done school-wide as part of Skills USA, McCuish said. Skills USA is a vocational school competition that also seeks to bridge the gap between schools, industry and community, he explained. One way it suggests schools do that is by promoting community service.McCuish said students went out weeks ago and essentially surveyed each park the school intended to clean.”They made a list of things they would need and a list of the work that needed to be done,” he said.Then they sat down with Public Works Associate Director Lisa Nerich to see if there was anything she wanted done. They grouped the students by shop classes, paired them with teachers, all of whom volunteered for the project and sent them into the city parks where they worked for about four hours.The students then went out and found sponsors: Diversified Project Management Inc., Doyle Electric, Gibson’s Roofs Inc., Inspectional Services Department, Irvine and Sons Inc., Lynne’s Kids Inc., Kaestle Boos Associates Inc. and MS Construction, which all donated supplies for the project, McCuish said.Nelson Climaco, who will be a senior in September, stood in Warren Street park with a clipboard in one hand. More than a dozen Auto Tech students worked painting over graffiti on playground equipment, scraping down picnic tables in preparation of painting and picking up trash.”I feel this is really important,” he said. “This is a neighborhood park and a lot of little kids come here. It should be clean and nice at all times.”A short distance away students moved slowly across the giant stone bleachers in Barry Park pulling weeds and picking up trash.Amanda Lobo and Odaury Gaovez wielded paint brushes under the unrelenting sun.”I like cleaning the parks,” Lobo said. “It’s hot but it’s worth it.””At least we’re doing something positive,” Gaovez added.The pair painted over graffiti on a park shed before moving across the field to paint the dugout.”There was a dog painted on that,” Lobo said pointing to the shed. “At least I think it was a dog. I don’t like seeing the parks all dirty.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].