Dozens of Labette County High School (LCHS) students engaged in a number of service projects throughout the district on last Wednesday, April 21.
LCHS Principal Marty Anderson said service project learning gets students involved in their local community through various projects, which benefit everyone.
Students fanned out across the communities served by USD 506 and pitched in to help spruce up those towns, mostly with painting and clean-up projects.
Through this experience the students earned deeper understanding of volunteerism and service to the community can be understood.
For those who brought permission slips from their parents, it was a day out of school, and they worked in Altamont, Bartlett, Mound Valley and Edna.
Anderson said the state of today’s economy makes it difficult for small communities to complete many such projects, and the students’ assistance was appreciated.
“We’ve received good feedback from our communities,” said Anderson.
In Bartlett, the students painted the wood trim around windows at the city garage and trimmed grass and weeds beside the building, also cleaning out a flower bed.
At Mound Valley, students picked up trash, painted fire hydrants and painted the town’s maintenance building.
Altamont City Clerk Liz Finley couldn’t say enough about the students and how they rolled up their sleeves to work in the community.
They split up into several groups, many working at the city lake painting dumpsters, swing sets and recreational equipment, and picked up trash. They worked at the city building helping to organize documents, planted flowers, swept sidewalks, painted both swimming pools and the outside of the pool house, sprayed picnic tables with stain, picked up trash all over town, washed windows,  painted the concession stand at the ball field, painted the Saddle Club pipe fence, swept the downtown street and went all over town cleaning gutters.
“It was just amazing,” Finley said. “We all appreciated them so much, and I think they had fun in the process.”
At Edna the students did similar work, spreading throughout the town and making any improvements on a list compiled by city and church leaders.
Edna City Treasurer Terri Eckelberry said everyone was so impressed with the LCHS students who came to their community.
They cleaned and planted flower beds at the city building, painted poles, worked at the cemetery, painted the inside walls at the community building, picked up trash, washed post office windows and generally spruced up the community.
Anderson emphasized his approval of the kids and the service project overall. “Everyone is talking about them,” he said. “I hope we can do this again.