Nathan Glassic of Penn Twp. and a rising 11th grader at Knoch volunteered to help spruce up Penn Christian Academy with fellow alums Monday, July 27, 2020.

PENN TWP — Members of the Penn Christian Academy Class of 2016 held a working reunion at the school Monday.

Eleven members of the class who are now entering their junior year at area high schools volunteered to spend the hot afternoon landscaping and painting.

Dathan Gillis, who has a summer job cutting grass at the school and will be a junior at Knoch High School in the fall, organized the effort to help out the school's maintenance staff.

He said he learned through his mother, a third-grade teacher, that the maintenance staff was so busy that they hadn't been able to do some needed work, so he contacted his classmates and asked for volunteers.

“Everybody said, 'That would be great.' Everybody was excited about it,” Gillis said.

The volunteer crew spread three yards of mulch around the school sign and landscaping, pulled weeds and painted an office.“We have a lot of memories here,” said Olivia Rochkind, a junior at Cheswick Christian Academy.Zoe Morley, a junior at Portersville Christian School, said many of the volunteers attended school together for years beginning in preschool.“It was nice to see everybody again. We were together for 13 years,” Morley said.The students remain friends, chat online and some of them occasionally run into each other, but Monday was the first time most of the alumni from the 12-member class have gotten together since they were all sixth-graders.They said they enjoyed their time as students at the school, and many have siblings now attending.“It gave me a good foundation for public school,” said Nathaniel Becker, a junior at Knoch.The work the students performed let maintenance supervisor Brian Cairns scratch a few things off his to-do list.

“This is enough work to keep me busy for a couple weeks,” Cairns said.He remembers the students and was happy to see them again.“They would have been in fourth grade when I started. It's great seeing them grown up and driving around,” Cairns said.Craig Carnahan, school administrator, said he is pleased to see the students take initiative and become young adults.“It's great to have our alumni back. This is their idea. It's great,” Carnahan said. “We love having them back on campus.”He said some of the students and their families moved since they attended the school, and the day felt like a mini reunion.“They're growing up, becoming young adults, and want to give back to the community and school, so it's great,” he said.

Harold Aughton/Butler Eagle: Former students of Penn Christian Academy volunteered to help with landscaping, painting and other chores in preparation for the start of the fall school year. From left, Dathan Gillis, a rising 11th grader at Knoch; Nathaniel Becker, also a rising 11th grader at Knoch and Hunter Graham, a rising 11th grader at Shady Side Academy put down 3 yards of mulch around the school Monday, July 27, 2020.

Penn Christian Academy alumna Zoe Morley of Valencia helps with maintenance work at her former school with nearly a dozen other alums Monday. Morley will be a junior at Portersville Christian School in the fall.Harold Aughton/Butler Eagle