Sheboygan South High School staff and students spent the day Wednesday, May 22, giving back to their community through a variety of community service opportunities on campus and in the community. The annual school “Service Day” is a tradition that started before the pandemic, and was revived last year.
Nicole Schumacher (STAFF) stated that Service Day is “important because it’s good for everybody to give back to the community and just contribute to where they are.” During this year’s Service Day, her students participated in many landscaping activities.
“For service day I had some students today work in the courtyard and we pulled weeds and cleared beds we planted and we pruned and filled the ponds.”
Micheal April (STAFF) also had his students participate in outdoor activities.
“ So what we did is called Adopt a beach and Adopt a beach is for the Alliance for the Great Lakes. And the students went around, and they collected garbage on the beaches and they recorded and collected the data.”
When asked why he thought this day was important, he said that it was a lovely way for the students to give back to Sheboygan.
“I think it’s important for students to you know, give back to the community, but also to see like, for example, for us the garbage the students had no idea what to clean. But when you start looking closely , you really see what’s there and as people walk on the beach, you know, you want it to be a pleasant place to go. So I think what the students are doing to give back is really important in our community.”
When Hallie Theune (STAFF) was asked about her experience with Service Day she echoed Dr. April’s sentiment.
“ It was nice to see the team work the students had working towards a positive impact on the community and even towards the school”.
Kevin Bazan (STAFF) also expressed this same focus on community. However, he thought that the day also taught students humility.
“I think service day is important as a student for a couple reasons one being that it’s a way to give back to your community whether it’s monetary, with grants, or any type of help with maybe your future as you graduated here. But other things is to understand doing this service, to really allow yourself to be humbled to help each other and I think it’s something that we don’t take time enough is to help those that around us, where it be supporting schools, neighborhoods, or even our surrounding parks. It’s a way that you can kind of feel good about yourself by doing the service and feeling that you have accomplished something not only for yourself or somebody else, which I think is a great trait to have as a student.”
Service Day was filled with many smiling faces of teachers and students as they gave back to their school and community. While Ms. Schumacher and Dr. April both worked on landscaping activities, there were also many others. Señora Elizabeth Cordeiro (STAFF) and Madame Angela Geiszler (STAFF) helped the students make kits for Nourish Farms. Meanwhile, Nancy Moss (STAFF) watched the students create inspirational posters for the elementary and middle schoolers. While there were many activities, they all shared the same theme: giving back.
