Seneca Valley seventh-graders working hard in community
CRANBERRY TWP — More than 100 Seneca Valley seventh-graders went to work Wednesday on a community service project that spanned the entire township.
The Seneca Valley Middle School Lion team, of nearly 120 students, helped out the township's public works department with a variety of tasks as part of a lesson in giving back.
Fanning out to the public works facility, the municipal center, Community Park, Graham Park and Haine Fire Station, the teens painted parking bollards and curbs, sealed picnic tables, painted primer on the township's snow plows, picked up trash along roads, trails and in vacant lots and removed graffiti.
“It's a good way to be helpful and take things off their hands,” said T.J. Border, a seventh-grader.
The teachers wanted to make the students' days at the end of the year, which can often be filled with dead time, more meaningful and useful, said Mike Manipole, a seventh-grade health teacher. The Lion team is one of five classroom groupings in the middle school.
“We always knew we had good kids but to stand side by side with them and work was really amazing,” Manipole said.
Most of the students use the township's facilities regularly, so the teachers also wanted to teach their students the value of giving back to the things they use, said Manipole, who is also a Cranberry Township supervisor. In turn, it makes the students take more ownership of the amenities in their community and become less likely to vandalize them.
“We wanted the kids to feel like they were a big part of what was happening there,” he said.
For many of the students, it was their first time participating in a community service project.
Students Emily Cinker and Alex Krzan said it was surprisingly fun and a little messy.“Whenever people hear about community service, they think it's boring, but this is fun,” Alex said, as she applied a new coat of yellow paint to a parking bollard outside one of the maintenance buildings.“Getting to do it with your friends too is fun,” Emily added.Jason Dailey, the township public works director, said it was a rough spring with a sudden transition from winter maintenance to summer tasks such as cutting grass. It left little time to get to the routine maintenance that the middle schoolers were doing.“They're doing genuine work. This isn't busy work,” he said. “This needs to be done. We're happy to have them.”Dailey said through another community-based school project and a Boy Scout projects, one student in the group had painted one of the snow plows twice before. These types of connections between the school and the community are invaluable to both groups, he said.“Then the students take pride in this work we do,” Dailey said. “They'll see these plows in the winter.”
