Student and community groups united to clean up Thomas Jefferson High School over the summer.
The front of Thomas Jefferson High School. Photo by Mia Nogueira
This past summer Thomas Jefferson High School hosted Sharefest, a community-building project where students, parents, and volunteers arrived at the school to clean the campus and make it look magnificent.
“Sharefest is a collaboration between Thomas Jefferson High School and the New City Church, with the objective of working within the community for the community high school,” explains Assistant Principal Scott Lessard.
Students were organized into multiple groups, each assigned with a different task. “The bulk of this year’s Sharefest was the locker cleaning throughout the school,” said Lessard. Not only did students clean out trash from within the depths of various lockers, but they also scrubbed each one until the lockers looked brand new. The trash from the lockers ended up filling over five dumpsters, which came from nearly 1100 lockers.
Senior Anna Becker was there cleaning out the lockers. “It was nice to see the TJ community come together to contribute to TJ’s beautification efforts,” explained Anna.
Cleaning lockers was not the only thing done at Sharfest. TJ Parent Kendra Black helped oversee the outside groundwork of the project, which included trash cleanup around the perimeter of TJ and sweeping the gravel in the parking lots around the school. Freshman counselor Erin Thompson had a group repainting the TJ emblem in front of the school. Other painting efforts were done as well, having each vertical column in the front of the school match the actual schools colors, a small change that many students will overlook, but nonetheless is crucial to the outward appearance of the school. Students and parents also had the rigorous work of scrubbing sprinkler pipes in the basement, and power washing every mat around TJ. Sports pictures that are now seen in the science and math halls of the school were also hung at the event. Overall, the administration feels that the goal of Sharefest was met.
Also attending Sharefest were students/parents Griffin Black, Gaby Landeros, Hayden Johnson, Nicole Brown, Ben Moore, Daniel Wakefield, Ian Melnicoe, Robert McMacken, Nick Becker, Theresa Black, and Mel Melnicoe.
