Students honored for park project

LYNN – Lynn Vocational Technical Institute students voluntarily performed 1,500 hours of community service last year and won the President’s Volunteer Service Award for their effort.”They were not doing community service to earn this award,” said LVTI English teacher Jason McCuish, who oversaw the community service project. “I just stumbled on this award and thought why not apply, it would recognize all the kids’ hard work.”McCuish wrangled about 500 students last year to clean up and renovate 11 of the city’s parks. The kids devised a plan, sought sponsors to help pay for supplies and then spent a day of service picking up trash, pulling weeds, removing or painting over graffiti and scraping down picnic tables.It was the third year the school had done a park cleanup, but it was the first time it was done as a school-wide, SkillsUSA event. SkillsUSA is a vocational school competition that also seeks to bridge the gap between schools, industry and community, and one way of doing that is by promoting community service.All LVTI students are members of SkillsUSA, but not everyone gets involved, McCuish said. The cleanup was a way to get more students involved and junior Kevin Gomes said it worked.”Kids got excited about it,” he said.According to the letter sent to McCuish announcing the honor, the award is issued by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation on behalf of the President of the United States “to recognize the best in the American spirit and to encourage all Americans to improve their communities through volunteer service and civic participation.”Gomes and seniors Megan Hansen and Eric Villanueva are also hoping to parlay the award Friday into a gold medal from SkillsUSA.The three, chosen by McCuish, will represent the entire school at a state SkillsUSA competition in Marlborough where they will present the project before a panel of judges. They will also have a chance to meet students from other technical high schools from around the state.Gomes said Monday he’s not nervous, but he might feel differently Friday.”I’ll probably get nervous once I see the judges,” he said.Villanueva said they have been practicing a lot.”They gave up vacation time to work on this,” McCuish added.The students, along with help from McCuish, put together a PowerPoint presentation and each speak on part of the project.If they win, all three, along with McCuish, will travel to Kansas City, Mo., in June to take part in the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference.Two representatives have already been invited to attend the PVSA Recognition Breakfast, which will also take place during the conference, but McCuish said he is hoping to bring all three students.”We’ll seek sponsors to pay for that,” he said.He feels confident about their chances Friday, however, as does his student representatives.”Bring it on,” said Villanueva. “We’re ready.””Not a lot of kids know about SkillsUSA, but this really brought the school together,” Hansen added. “Everyone was willing to participate and now everyone outside of Tech will know about us, and Classical and English will have to make way for Tech.”