A 'day on' as Frontier students pick up trash
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald A Frontier Middle School student emerges from the weeds with someone’s old, discarded cowboy boot. A group of Frontier students picked up trash in downtown Moses Lake as part of the school’s commemoration of the Martin Luther King Jr., holiday on Monday.
MOSES LAKE — Monday wasn’t a day off for a small group of Frontier Middle School students.
It was a day on.
About 25 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders from Frontier Middle School spent a portion of Martin Luther King Jr., Day walking up and down Third Avenue, picking up garbage and trying to help out a little in the community.
“I just didn’t want to sit on my couch, or just pet my cats. They’re kind of bored with me anyway,” said eighth-grader Allyson Ingram.
“We’re just picking up garbage, walking around, helping at the warming center and other places,” she added.
For Frontier sixth-grade teacher Keith Jensen, the idea is to mark the MLK holiday with some of service to the greater good.
“We’re giving back to the community and doing a little cleanup,” Jensen said. “There are about 25 students here, from the ASB, Leadership and Avid.”
Jensen said Frontier has been trying to find a way to make the Martin Luther King Jr., holiday more meaningful for students, but this is the first time they’ve actually done this.
The students walked up and down Third Street, picking up trash along the streets and the alleys parallel to Third, and then across Alder to the corner of Broadway with Walgreens and Dutch Bros. Coffee, where they picked up some more trash and then ordered drinks as a group.
“It was fun,” said sixth-grader Sidney Garcia. “We’re actually doing something for our community, making sure everything is nice and clean.”
As they poked through the weeds and the discarded rail ties along the banks of Moses Lake, the kids found all sorts of trash from discarded coffee cup lids to an old black cowboy boot missing its sole.
“Ick,” one girl said. “There’s a lot of garbage here.”
But most appreciated being out with friends and doing good work on an unseasonably warm winter day in the middle of January.
“It was surprisingly more fun than I thought it would be,” said eighth-grader Naomi Hernandez.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.