Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
A group of nearly 15 students in an advanced skilled trades class at Genoa High School are nearing completion of a landscaping overhaul on campus.
The project, which wasn’t officially approved until April 13, required the students to present to the administration, do scaled drawings, come up with budgets, call companies to work with, take out all the old mulch and landscaping, and install a two-tier retaining wall around the Genoa High School sign.
And the students have done all the work themselves.
“We’ve had a goal to revamp the school and give it a new life,” junior Chase Cooper said.
Cooper said they ripped up the big bushes and re-did all the mulch as it was outdated.
“The line between the mulch and the grass was practically non-existent, so we took our edgers and dug a nice line,” he said. “We had to lay down some sod in patches where we didn't want mulch, in areas there was mulch prior.”
But the biggest part of the project was the creation of the two-tier base around the school sign, which is something Cooper said he hasn’t had experience with despite being around lawn care his entire life with his brother owning a landscaping company.
“I've always been doing landscaping, but I've actually never built a retaining wall like we did on the sign, so that entire experience of working with friends was just a blast, and I’m so proud to say that I was part of it,” he said. “There were a couple nights where we were here until 11:30 at night working on it.”
Cooper and fellow junior Gus Buffington came up with the original idea for the project two years ago, but without the financial resources to make it happen, it didn’t come to fruition. Fast forward to present day, and coincidentally the school’s FFA alumni, which is the big booster group at Genoa, brought the idea to the table for advanced skills instructor, Tricia Schoen.
“It really just started off that way, and it encompassed into more than just mowing grass or trimming bushes,” Schoen said. “The kids took it to a new level when I brought it to them and they said, 'Oh my gosh, can we do the project that we thought of freshman year?' And then it took off from there.”
Schoen said the original plan also involved work with the middle school, but after the students met and discussed it with administrators, the decision was made to really go full force on the high school this year and then maybe in future years they could add on with different things.
Schoen emphasized that this has been a student-led project, which includes a group of 14 juniors and seniors, and that they really took it and ran with it.
“It really just means a lot,” Buffington said. “We started our freshman year with the idea for it, and then this year we got the opportunity to actually act upon that idea that we started with. We've been working on it since the end of February, making designs, making plans, presenting to different people around the school, and eventually getting it approved and actually doing the project.”
Buffington said the camaraderie between the group of students is what stands out to him.
“We were just able to get a great group of kids out here to do it, and they had the willingness to put the work in because we're not doing it for any of our own personal gain,” he said. “It's really just for the school and for the community.”
Along the way, the students also learned a lesson in perseverance.
“At one point, the project was almost put on hold,” Schoen said. “We were told that it wasn't going to happen and tried to figure out some logistics with financials such as who was paying for what and how we were going to do it, and that kind of reinforced the kids' will to ‘We are doing this, this is going to happen, and we're going to make it happen by graduation.’”
“There was some self-doubt in a group of 14 high schoolers to be able to get this size of project done before graduation, so when we sat down and made timelines, we had large discussions as a class of ‘Hey, if we're going to do this, this is something we are committing to, to make sure it gets done, no matter what we have to do, and the only thing that can really stop us is going to be the weather.’ They kept that timeline despite multiple kids in sports or with jobs.
“They put in time during our period. A lot of them have study hall, and they're putting time in there. A couple of them even came in and they were staying until late at night until the janitors told them, 'Hey, you have to leave, finish things up.' If that doesn't tell you how this group of kids, when they set their minds to something, that they’re going to stay determined, I don't know what else will.”
On top of that, Schoen said this project helps showcase what high school students are capable of.
“When people think that high school students, maybe nowadays, maybe they're not doing as much, or they're lazy, or they don't want to work as hard, and you just hear all these things going on in education right now, I think this just reinforces the fact that if you have kids involved in their learning, they will make learning fun, and they will make sure things get done,” she said. “Then it's also just teaching the significance of citizenship. Creating good citizens, giving back, and eventually it will give back to you in creating a better environment for that, and I think that was super important for this group of students and in this day and age right now.”
